
The Magic Bureaucrat and His Riverside Miracle - jcbeard
http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/magic-bureaucrat-riverside-miracle/
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gwern
The Iron Law of Program evaluation: "The expected value of any net impact
assessment of any large scale social program is zero"; the stainless steel
law: "the better designed the impact assessment of a social program, the more
likely is the resulting estimate of net impact to be zero."

[http://www.gwern.net/docs/1987-rossi](http://www.gwern.net/docs/1987-rossi)

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aeorgnoieang
> Neither the federal government nor the states that ran the welfare-to-work
> programs had the political will to rethink the programs, which they had
> worked already to reform.

This is an under-appreciated constraint on government-run welfare programs and
other government-run charities.

The larger problem – providing welfare and other forms of charity – is, of
course, huge, complex, and possibly impossible-to-solve (completely).

~~~
Spooky23
Most political leaders are focused on making their problems someone else's
problem. We tend to overweigh the amount of "thought" going into these things.

In this case, you had an expensive benefit that was politically unpopular with
just about everyone and very expensive to local government (who provides the
workforce and shares costs). Welfare to work "fixed" that, and at the end of
the day, most of the people who fall off the wagon end up on the Social
Security Disability rolls.

All the stakeholders are happy:

* Recipients are happy - They get their money, and deal with less bullshit once their get the benefit.

* People who get off of government supports are happy. They have a job.

* Local politicians are happy - Social Security pays for everything, their share goes away.

* Local voters are happy - "We're not paying for those freeloaders. Derp."

~~~
gertef
If all the stakeholders are happy, the solution is good, right?

Or perhaps not all the stakeholders really are happy?

~~~
kbenson
Well, it's partly a problem of shifting the problem to a much larger one that
affects much more people, which allows the _original_ stakeholders to shift
responsibility. The new problem includes the entire State or US population as
a stakeholder, and they are not happy that the burden has been shifted to
them.

Put another way, local pain is spread throughout a much larger area, allowing
a more average level of burden overall (which helps heavily affected areas),
but more importantly allows hiding of the cost for the local area, so local
stakeholders are "happier", if by happier you mean they are now upset about
the same thing under a different guise, which they no longer see as their own
responsibility.

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discardorama
What is not mentioned here is that many of the welfare recipients moved to
SSDI (Social Security Disability Income). SSDI is paid for by the Federal
government, so the states were incentivized to encourage this move. In fact,
there are companies that specialize in applying for SSDI for welfare
recipients, and charge per successful application.

There's the feel-good story, and then there's the harsh reality. The reality
is, SSDI enrollment has gone up by a factor of 3X since this "welfare reform"
thing passed.

I have a neighbor who is reasonably fit (he can move 100lb+ stones in his side
gig as a landscaper), but he is on SSDI and collects a cool $3K/mo for doing
nothing. Once you are on SSDI, it's very difficult to kick you off.

~~~
susan_hall
I am hoping the slow expansion of Social Security and Disability will
eventually bring Universal Basic Income to the USA. This is the only likely
route for the USA to get UBI, since the political forces opposing UBI are very
strong. But if we can push to expand the definition of "disability" and if we
can lower the age of Social Security, then eventually we can get close to
something like UBI. And hopefully, once we've passed some critical threshold
(which might be 30% of the population or 50% or 80% or some other number) then
the public will see the need to reorganize the way these programs are run, and
hopefully when that reform is enacted, we will get a real UBI, implemented in
a clear and concise way.

~~~
pjc50
> _push to expand the definition of "disability"_

I think this is very much the wrong way to do it - you're suggesting that we
can leverage people's existing thinking that "disabled == deserving" to expand
who is considered "deserving". Whereas it could well go the other way and
leave the public thinking "disabled == skiving". Plus the fact that
encouraging people to label themselves "disabled" is debilitating and
demoralising.

The only way to get UBI is to break the negative associations of voluntarily
not working.

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theparanoid
The magic of regression to the mean - "They compared these subjects to those
participating in other California programs that had focused on education and
training. What they found was that the effects of the 'Riverside Miracle' had
all but disappeared."

~~~
kbenson
The important point here is not that they compared to other programs, they did
that from the start, but that the trajectory of the future benefit looked very
different. It was much more beneficial in the short term, but less beneficial
overall in the long term. The initial study period was just not far enough out
from the beginning of the program to see this.

It's a catch-22 really, you either wait long enough to correctly identify what
may be some long term detrimental effects, and if it's actually a better
option many people are kept from these benefits during that period, or you
move more quickly to help the people you currently have and risk a situation
like this, where the eventual outcome is worse.

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joeyo

      > Before Townsend and Clinton, the prevailing philosophy
      > around welfare was that single mothers needed it so they 
      > could afford to stay out of the workforce and raise 
      > their children.
    

I wonder if it might not make sense to return to those older ways (for those
parents that wish it): childcare is expensive and paying one parent not to
work (or to give them the security to work part-time) may have a greater
societal benefit / societal cost savings than aiming for full employment.

~~~
cortesoft
As someone who recently had to face this issue in my family (should one of us
stay home with our daughter or should we do daycare?), I think I disagree.

Simply put, daycare is much more economically efficient than having one parent
stay home with one child. In a daycare setting, one adult can care for up to 4
children. Most stay-at-home parents are NOT parenting 4 kids at once.

Like most things in the world, specialization has all sorts of advantages.
Daycare is able to provide stimulation for our daughter that a parent at home
would struggle to provide; when it is your full time job to take care of a
number of kids, you can dedicate your time to creating stimulating and fun
activities for them.

I also think there is benefit in the socialization aspects of daycare.
Learning to be around other kids and be the social creatures we are is a good
thing.

Now, I do believe that a dedicated stay-at-home parent can of course provide
all of these things as well, it is just very difficult and inefficient... it
is the same reason we all don't grow our own food and make our own clothes...
division of labor and specialization are great things.

~~~
guelo
> we all don't grow our own food

I can make way better tomatoes in my backyard garden then anything you can buy
at the most premium, organic farmer's market you can find. Part of the reason
is that I can care for my tomatoes to an unreasonable level since I know that
I am the one that's going to be eating them.

~~~
oldmanjay
The other part of the reason is your natural tendency to believe your tomatoes
are better, because you put in all that work. Bias is a funny thing

~~~
fragola
Agreed. There are plenty of studies that attest to the well-being of children
who go to daycare.[1]

"Home grown tomatoes" may be best when grown by good gardeners (i.e. some
people are just better with kids, including their own) and the ideal
environment (parks, museums, grandparents nearby). But it's not a universal
truth.

[1]
[http://www.cckm.ca/ChildCare/EvidenceQuestion1.htm](http://www.cckm.ca/ChildCare/EvidenceQuestion1.htm)

~~~
jcbeard
Exactly, the question is...how to pay for the daycare. My son went to daycare.
When I went to grad school, it was half my salary. Literally half. Thankfully
I had the US GI Bill, otherwise I'd have been hosed. Dealing with the churn in
society, and lets not argue semantics, if you're on welfare it's likely the
skills you have don't meet the market needs. We need an education system that
enables people to learn to fish, while giving them fish to survive/take care
of their families. Right now, that system is slightly borked. Online education
is awesome at providing access to many people, the problem is getting
employers to recognize the value of the degrees/certificates that result. Some
do, many don't. I totally get it, the quality is all over the place. Then
again, so is the quality of in-person institutions.

