This one-hour seminar, hosted by Asendar Venkataramani, MD, LDI Senior Fellow and Director of the Opportunities for Health Lab at the Penn Perelman School, will explore the economic security and economic security of America’s marginalized and low-income populations. We look at a variety of programs that experiment with new ways to address racial wealth disparities. Income population. This is the first of three seminars that will bring together top experts to discuss the latest research findings in this field.
Can income support programs such as guaranteed income and cash transfers really improve the financial security and health of low-income people?
That was the central question of an Oct. 18 virtual seminar co-sponsored by the Opportunities for Health Lab (OfH) at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine and the Leonard David Health Economics Institute (LDI). The session, entitled ‘Promoting Health through Economic Policy’, was moderated by OfH LAB Director, Atheendar Venkataramani, MD, LDI Senior Fellow and Perelman School Associate Professor.
Thethekar Venkataramani
“One of the strongest and most enduring connections in public health and the social sciences is the link between income and wealth and health,” he said at the beginning of the seminar. His OfH Lab, founded in 2020, has focused on the various factors that create social and economic opportunities, particularly those that impact the health of marginalized populations.
cash without conditions
Over the past decade, researchers have explored the concept of new safety net health interventions, such as guaranteed income and cash transfers that provide families with an unlimited allocation of cash over long periods of time. And, unlike welfare, it gives recipients full control over how their money is spent, and it does so in a way that respects individual choice and reduces stigma.
This program is controversial. Supporters argue that such regular cash payments reduce financial stress and help stabilize families by allowing them access to healthier food, stable housing, and health care. There is. Critics argue that such benefits discourage recipients from seeking work, while also potentially allowing recipients to misuse the funds for non-essential or harmful purposes.
Madeline Brown
There are a number of pilot research projects implementing such programs across the country. Seminar panelists explored the latest findings and insights from that research. They are: Madeline Brown, MPAP, Senior Policy Advisor, Office of the Counselor for Racial Equity, U.S. Department of the Treasury; Dr. Amy Beth Castro, co-founder and director of the Center for Income Security Research at the University of Pennsylvania; William Elliott III, PhD, MSW, University of Michigan Co-Doctoral Professor and Director of Social Work and Social Sciences. Dr. Angela Rashidi, MPA, is a Senior Fellow and Lowe Research Fellow in Poverty Studies at the American Enterprise Institute.
100+ pilot projects
Mr Brown of the Treasury explained: “Over the past decade, we have seen the development of a number of traditional income safety net programs such as SNAP, TANF, the Earned Income Tax Credit, and the Child Tax Credit.However, more recently, we have also seen movement in the area of cash transfers and guaranteed income. Since 2018, more than 100 guaranteed income pilots have been created nationwide.
amy beth castro
Castro’s Penn Guaranteed Income Research Center currently has 38 pilot experiments involving 20,000 people in randomized controlled trials (RCTs) underway. The completed study was an RCT conducted in Stockton, California, and paid subjects a guaranteed income of $500 per month for two years, from February 2019 to January 2021. The study, published in the Journal of Urban Health in 2023, found that people in the treatment group had “lower income volatility, lower psychological distress, and increased energy and physical function than the control group.” They reported greater independence in exploring new opportunities related to employment and caregiving, and a better ability to weather pandemic-related economic fluctuations.”
“One of the things we see over and over again is that time scarcity is associated with financial scarcity,” Castro explained during the seminar. “As income fluctuations subsided and people had more time, they began to direct that money toward health behaviors in ways we hadn’t anticipated. Consider this particular sample of low-income households. and the average annual income is $14,000. Their body is life insurance. And when you are the most powerful member of the economically vulnerable network, you can maintain the health and well-being of your entire family. They did a great job of redirecting the time they gained through the guaranteed income experiment to improving treatment compliance, returning to physical therapy, increasing physical activity, and improving sleep quality.”
Elliott and Venkataramani of the University of Michigan highlighted the subtle, intangible benefits that come from the sense of trust and connection inherent in participating in guaranteed income and cash transfer programs.
william elliot
the visible power of hope
“I talk about specific hopes,” Elliott said. “Poverty is when a poor child not only has low income, but also poor assets. Assets can be used to buy stocks for the future.As someone who grew up in poverty and was homeless at one time, It’s really shocking to me that I don’t have a future and how that affects my health and well-being and how I think about the world. It is more important than knowing that you can change your future through work and effort, with the help of the institutions and resources that society provides.”
Venkataramani says, “The idea of concrete hope is a psychosocial concept in which many public policies, such as programs to increase income and wealth, shape aspirations and hopes for the future in ways that shape health behaviors and behaviors.” “It emphasizes the fact that it works through a physical mechanism.” It has a positive effect on health. In fact, there’s a beautiful paper on this by economist Debraj Ray. He was writing in an international context about poverty as an aspiration trap, where the lack of sufficient goods and services reduces the aspiration to meet the same conditions. ”
Rashidi, of the American Enterprise Institute, said pilot projects that have been completed so far have shown mixed results regarding health benefits. She discussed the potential downsides of cash programs.
Angela Rashidi
Disadvantages of cache programs
“Everyone agrees that the more income you have, the better, because the health of your children will be better,” Rashidi says. “But the question is, can we design government programs that increase incomes in a causal way that leads to better outcomes? There are obviously many reasons why family incomes are low, and The evidence about causation is a little less clear, because just increasing the amount doesn’t necessarily solve those problems. If those underlying problems are actually causing the bad outcomes, then those income programs… It doesn’t necessarily work.”
“If transferring more income to households leads to fewer jobs, then those households will no longer benefit from all the non-economic benefits of employment, including improved health outcomes,” Rashidi said. He continued. “Another drawback is the large payments that households have to make to bring about meaningful improvements. We must recognize how those costs will be covered and the unintended consequences of this, such as tax increases that have macroeconomic impacts.”
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