What we've seen in study after study is that if you take low-income people who are struggling and give them more money, they use it in ways that improve their lives, they become more productive, and this has profound long-term impact.
At the same time, I don't think anybody really disputes that giving moderate amounts of extra cash to a heroin addict is unlikely to improve their lives. They need medical treatment before anything else.
I've never seen a study which looked at extra cash injections for long-term unemployed. That would be an interesting one. I would be unsurprised to find that cash alone was insufficient to solve their problems; the most obvious thing they need is education.
My point here is that cash clearly helps in some - probably most - circumstances. But "just give cash" is insufficient; we still need to work on all the other things as well.
What we've seen in study after study is that if you take low-income people who are struggling and give them more money, they use it in ways that improve their lives, they become more productive, and this has profound long-term impact.
At the same time, I don't think anybody really disputes that giving moderate amounts of extra cash to a heroin addict is unlikely to improve their lives. They need medical treatment before anything else.
I've never seen a study which looked at extra cash injections for long-term unemployed. That would be an interesting one. I would be unsurprised to find that cash alone was insufficient to solve their problems; the most obvious thing they need is education.
My point here is that cash clearly helps in some - probably most - circumstances. But "just give cash" is insufficient; we still need to work on all the other things as well.