applegrove
applegrove's JournalHow Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive
How Poverty Makes Workers Less Productive
February 2, 20216:31 AM ET
GREG ROSALSKY at NPR Planet Money
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2021/02/02/961910289/how-poverty-makes-workers-less-productive
"SNIP.....
The researchers then monitored the workers' on-the-job performance, comparing them to a group of workers that didn't get paid upfront. The researchers find that the workers who were paid upfront were significantly more productive, making 6.2% more plates per hour. The biggest effect was seen with the poorest workers. Even more, the plates they made were less likely to be marred by mistakes, indicating they were more attentive on the job.
The authors conclude that giving workers cash upfront helped alleviate the mental burden of their financial problems and freed them to be more productive. It echoes findings from other studies on the psychological consequences of poverty, but it is novel because it looked at the effects of it at a real job rather than in a laboratory setting.
Given the emerging body of evidence that suggests the cognitive load of poverty hurts low-income folks' ability to escape their circumstances, the authors argue that policymakers should consider reshaping welfare programs with these psychological issues in mind. Giving poor people cash without conditions, for example, could do a lot to help them earn more cash on their own.
We've written before in the Planet Money newsletter about growing evidence that our welfare programs may not be up to the task. A study last year by the California Policy Lab found evidence that a huge percentage of poverty-stricken Californians are not getting the Earned Income Tax Credit because of the difficulty of filling out tax forms. Mullainathan and his colleagues' work is a reminder that policymakers should recognize the cognitive burden on many of those who live in poverty and make it easier for them to get assistance.
.....SNIP"
Where do you fall on the scale if falling for trickle down economics?
I was taught economics in University Nova Scotia and did not question the idea that we could not sustain too much debt. It was in all the news when i was in high school. I admired Chretien and Clinton's fights to tame that beast. I was never for tax cuts. Supply side was explained to me as aggregate supply curb being bent, not trickle down which i never believed. My older brother, at school in the United States, was given Ayn Rand to read and was a conservative for all of three weeks (he had not had a girlfriend yet which is pertinent to liking Ayn Rand). Within that window, he was brought to dinner by friends with Arthur Laffer who told of his napkin trick. My brother soon converted his friends to Liberalism. I was for negative income tax (basic income) and robust social programs always. As a canadian from a medical family i am for public health care always. My grandfather practiced socialized medicine in his rural community before it was law for 50 years. My grandmother ran the farm so that people would have options to help out instead of paying cash. Mostly they just left what was owed by the poor on the books and ignored it. My great grandfather was a Liberal politician in ottawa who introduced income tax to Parliament (Union Government). My dad was a Liberal fundraiser who held teas for wealthy Liberal ladies to get their support for the party in the 1970s. He was a Trucking Trade Association guy. When a Transportation of Dangerous Goods Law was being negotiated in Ottawa my dad supported the regulations at some point, breaking with his Truckers (who were influenced a great deal by the American Trucking Association). His truckers pulled the funding for his Association in anger. My dad put his own money into publishing a handbook on the new laws for Truckers and Management. He put his own money into payroll. The truckers needed that information and forgave him. Besides he was well informed because he took the bus to work from a senior civil service neighbourhood and talked to the senior civil servants on the bus about government plans and knew what was up before anyone outside of government. The propaganda on debt was heavy in Ottawa. So too in my high school our history teacher told us the US Civil War was not fought against slavery. Seems Canada was in GOP plans. My first election i voted for Conservative Brian Mulrooney as i was worried about debt. All subsequent elections I have voted for the Liberals or the NDP. I supported Buttigieg, Biden, Bernie, Biden this past election season. I'm with Krugman's thinking that there are factors, like people buying stuff that comes from overseas, that keep inflation way lower. That more debt can be sustained. And i think there is room to share that windfall, that went to the wealthy with tax breaks and a window to bring foreign profits home, with workers by aggressively promoting unions and minimum wage hikes. And a war on poverty. And infrastructure spending. Etc. And all the policy tools that are cutting edge and were ignored under Trump.
I just had a thought. Some Trumpers are former Democrats angry at losing good jobs
and neither party working to fix that. Many of these voted for Obama. What happens if there are bitter nomination races between Business Republicans and Trump Republicans, and the Trump Republican candidate loses? Will the former democratic voting bitter Trumpers split and vote for Union Joe Biden and the Democrats?
Never heard of this group. GOP internal war has moved to the videos. No mention
of Trump which is interesting. They are branding themselves as the integrity faction. Like Reagan didn't spread the trikle down lie. Or use the southern strategy. Or destroy unions. They are running in the space Biden occupies too. Democrats need to be on how the GOP is anti union and not for the middle class. They want to cleave it and their cutting of taxes on the rich while trying to stop social programs lkie the ACA prove it. Once cleaved their will will entrenched rich and many poor like Mexico. Or Saudi Arabia. Or Russia.
https://twitter.com/maddow/status/1357119799705411584
Republicans think being small makes them big men. It just makes them
empty. Cue the SS at the Kurshners having to go to the Obamas' to use the washroom. The Mulroneys' did that 30 years ago to the police at the official retreat at Harrington Lake in Quebec. RCMP had to use a porto potty. Now we know what business people like the Trumps gossip about: how to be small when you get power. And the ones who control the narrative know that if you make people do petty things, they lose a bit of their soul and are unconnected and search out for more money and/or power to fill the void. And it never ends. And then they are at war with people who work for a living. Turns out connecting to people of all kinds makes your heart grow.
The Rich GOP say they want freedom, so how is showing fealty to Trump
and his mob freedom? It breaks one's spirit. No extra length of lazy river in the backyard pool renovation is going to mitigate that they are no longer masters of their own domains. People who would do anything for power don't really have agency anymore. They are peons. Corruption works like that. You end up intertwined, not free and a bit more dead inside because they know they kissed the ring of someone they don't respect.
I wonder if they worried authorities might be checking out their air b&bs
while they demonstrated tuesday night to get intel on their intentions, so vanilla isis took the helmets, zip ties, noose, and the bear spray with them in knapsacks, and preplanned that. Hypocrites love to teach others into being hypocritical to increase the humiliation of some other, and what could be more hypocritical than to act peaceful at a Jan 5th rally with a can of bearspray on your back. They must of had some insider police info from at least one member of the mob who 1) was police 2) travelled to washington to do an insurrection or helped plan it 3) knew police tactics of assessing the threat of rallies involving extremists. Like the FBI guy said on Bill Maher last week the authorities can be anywhere on the political extremist scale, just like any american. And there were at least 3 at the Capitol. I'm speculating. Who knows. 
At the Demonstration Jan 5th the future insurrectionists went to, I pointed
out so many had knapsacks. I wondered why because normally a few people will be wearing one at any kind of demonstration. But never almost everyone. We speculated what was in the knapsacks and did someone send out instructions.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=14814107
Do you think a huge part of those out Tuesday night had instructions?
I think he wants to run for President. He pushed Marco Rubio to get
back into politics after Rubio quit them after the 2016 nomination race. Then Ryan quit himself within 2 years. I guess he didn't want to get the appeaser/nevertrumper stink on him. Just speculating.
There is regression analysis out that says when people suffer
financial anxiety they think irrationally rather than rationally. Seems if they don't have a place in the middle class some will follow anything. We need to peel off the follower types from the pure evil types. Give them a good paying job and they will dream of a good retirement, maybe a cabin in the woods, rather than dream of the next Trump rally because thinking of their financial penury in retirement does not feel good and belonging to Trump does. We want them rational so they will be open to words.
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