Paying Parents to "Do the Right Thing"
Paying "Low-Income" Parents to "Do the Right Thing?" Is this a viable antipoverty strategy? Do you think that an approach like this is "crazy?" Would you rather just put parents in jail for "Doing the wrong thing?" Is putting parents in jail for doing the wrong thing cheaper, or more expensive than paying them to do the right thing?
There is a catch.… Should we only pay parents of the lowest socioeconomic strata for doing what is right?
What do we do with middle class and wealthy parents who don't do what is right for their children? And, if paying low-income parents is the "right thing," why isn't it "right" to pay all parents?
And what is the "Right Thing?" Here are some examples:
- Getting a library card for their children: $50
- Taking children to the doctor or dentist: $100
- Getting the children vaccinated
- Passing a state high-stakes content exam: $600 to student (Up to five exams)
Source: New York City Government site: Schedule of Incentives
"The education incentives are designed to promote school attendance, parental engagement and improved performance on standardized tests. Health incentives will be offered for maintaining adequate health coverage as well for making timely medical and dental visits. Work-force incentives will be offered for those who sustain full-time employment and upgrade their job skills.
Families that complete the noted activities will receive their cash payments every two months.
The $50 million program is being privately funded by the Rockefeller Foundation, the Broad Foundation, the Starr Foundation, the Robin Hood Foundation, the Open Society Institute, the American International Group and Bloomberg."
Source:
ABC News
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=3589074&page=1
For a description of low-income parents that would have done the right thing anyway, but who are collecting the money, and how parents may delay doing the right thing until they are eligible for a payment, visit…
http://www.nypost.com/seven/09132007/news/regionalnews/this_dad_is_paid_if_his_kids_g.htm
Political Future or Wasted Money?
Of course, not everyone looks favorably on this program, although it is being funded with private (not government money), and the program was supposed to modeled after programs that were tested in Mexico. How could anyone object to poor parents earning extra money?
"The program is being offered to 5,000 low-income families, with payments in varying amounts to the families, if they get more involved in their children’s schooling, grades, attendance, doctor’s visits, etc.…One excuse given in the story was that “Sometimes, people need a little encouragement, so maybe this will help wake some people up”. Whatever happened to parental responsibility?! Parents need to pay close attention to what is going on with their children, their schooling, grades, their health, etc. But now parents are going to be paid to do what they should already be doing?! Hmm, paying parents to do what they should already be doing for their children, because it’s their children. Isn’t that what we call Bribery? Where do I sign up? I’ve got a kid wanting to go to college."
Source:
http://www.tellinitlikeitis.net/2007/09/mayor-bloomberg-paying-poor-to-do-the-right-thing.html
"(Writing last month in Gotham Gazette, Heather MacDonald took the opposite view, arguing that it could set a dangerous and absurd precedent: "Not just attending classes, but refraining from hitting your teacher, not bringing a gun to school, showing up for an exam, bathing your kids and feeding them — all will be candidates for a bribe.")
Source:
http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2006/10/17/paying-parents-to-do-the-right-thing-new-york-is-smart-to-look-to-mexico/
And, what about the Mexican program that the New York City was model upon?
" This kind of cash incentive “is based on a highly successful Mexican antipoverty program, known as Oportunidades, that is now being tried by at least 25 other countries” and resulted in bigger, healthier and better-schooled children.
Source:
http://www.gothamgazette.com/blogs/wonkster/2006/10/17/paying-parents-to-do-the-right-thing-new-york-is-smart-to-look-to-mexico/
Read a report about the Mexican Anti-Poverty program…
The Mexican program started in rural areas, and migrated to urban areas (no pun intended).
Economic Opportunity
One issue is clear. Parents who live in poverty do not want their children to become sick, suffer, die. These parents do not want their children's to feel pangs of hunger, neither do these parents want their children's teeth to rot out.
The financial incentives may look like "easy-street" freebies to some parents, but this program uncovers contentious issues.
Classroom Toolkit is just going to mention these issues, but we do not have solutions.
Forces of Contention
Here is a list of "hot-button" issues (in no particular order):
- Unskilled workers cannot earn a living wage in a city with a high cost of living (such as NYC), even by working two jobs
- People who cannot support themselves on their wages cannot support children
- Crime, drugs, alcoholism, gambling, prostitution and gang activities tend to find recruits in impoverished areas
- Alcoholism in particular creates chromosome and genetic abnormalities that can be passed down for several generations
- Mental illness may be a root cause of some of the poverty
- Affluent people in plain view of the impoverished people often cause the impoverished people to feel of resentment just because the affluent people have more luck, choices, benefits than they do
- The emphasis upon government assuming responsibility when parents cannot or will not take care of their children is costly
- What about providing "Universal Health Care" for all children. How about "Universal Health Care" for parents so that they remain well enough to take care of their children?
- Political solutions that emphasize punishment of the underclass are seldom effective. Whether true or not, people in the lowest economic stations of life often feel like they are being punished already
Imagine Paying Someone to do What they Should do
Paying someone to do what is right sounds like a novel idea. What if our politicians learned about this?
Oh wait! Don't we already pay our politicians to do the right thing?
How are the folks who can't do what is right by their constituents (because they play "party politics," make "back-room deals," "sell their votes to the highest-bidding lobbyist" going to help the poor do what is right.
Surely the poor cannot look to our politicians as role models?
A Drop in the Bucket
$50 million USD is a "drop in the bucket" compared to the kind of money that it would take to make a significant impact in the poverty conditions of a city the size of New York City.
$50 million is a meager sum for running a school district of 5,000 students.
$50 million sounds like a lot of money until you start to "crunch the numbers.
If there were just over 1 million students in the NYC school system, this is a sum total of less than $50.00 for each student.
Were the program to give $50 per student to the 100 largest school systems in the country (just over 10 million students), the program would cost over $540 million.
Poverty is a problem in our country, we just don't believe that we have the money to fix it.
And what is $50 per year? In the school district budget crisis a few years past, teachers were given a "token raise" of $50.00. Of course, $50.00 divided by 12 months, minus taxes, minus retirement; equals a barely noticeable increase on the paycheck.
What is your take on paying low-income parents to do the right thing?
