Among the things I’ve gotten wrong/changed my mind on is giving out money to the poor as a governmental policy solution. This is not to say that the poor don’t need or deserve help. It’s to say that the studies show that direct cash subsidies don’t work, at least in rich countries:
Multiple large, high-quality randomized studies are finding that guaranteed income transfers do not appear to produce sustained improvements in mental health, stress levels, physical health, child development outcomes or employment. Treated participants do work a little less, but shockingly, this doesn’t correspond with either lower stress levels or higher overall reported life satisfaction.
Homeless people, new mothers and low-income Americans all over the country received thousands of dollars. And it’s practically invisible in the data. On so many important metrics, these people are statistically indistinguishable from those who did not receive this aid.
This was not what I, nor researchers in the field, expected. (I have also grown to really resent some of the NGOs (including the one mentioned in this article) who hype their work in the face of poor outcomes.)
There are some studies that are hoping to find evidence that targeted money can have an outsized impact during specific life moments. I’m aware of one study that indicated such a thing worked: People faced with a single large bill—healthcare, rent, etc.—that they couldn’t tackle themselves were absolutely helped in measurable ways by a cash infusion that mitigated the circumstance, and they remained in a better place financially for at least several years following the event.
There’s also evidence that a cash hand-out policy works, and works very well, in poorer countries. A one-time $1000 gift in rural Kenya reduced infant mortality by 48%, according historian Rutger Bregman, referencing a GiveDirectly study.