There's also a general disdain for the poor, rooted in just-world fallacy. As American politics would have you believe, the poor can't be trusted with cash. "They'll just spend it on drugs and plasma TVs!" Thus, the only politically salient form of aid to the poor is in the form of vouchers for specific things, e.g. food and medicine.
This is dogma on the right, but it echoes surprisingly often from the left as well.
Is it really dogma on the right? At least in the right circles I run in, the EITC (extra cash for working: earn more, get more) is way more popular than food stamps.
I am absolutely in favor of cash as the best anti-poverty method. It's also the most respectful of people who are, after all, citizens. If you wouldn't like to be told by the government what foods you are permitted to buy for your family, why should you feel good about imposing those restrictions on anyone else?
>If you wouldn't like to be told by the government what foods you are permitted to buy for your family, why should you feel good about imposing those restrictions on anyone else? //
The difference is that when one is receiving charity it's expected that the giver is free to apply conditions. If I see you're starving and give you money for food and you instead spend it on a weapon so you can rob people then I'm going to next time buy the food first and give you that.
As food transport is costly and solved within the markets already food vouchers make sense.
I would prefer to be given food than to starve. Indeed I think an identity linked card with food credits would probably be best, then the vouchers can't be stolen.
People need comprehensive basics: food, health/personal care, shelter and transportation. I'm not sure one program in one area can address or even a patchwork of programs will cover all of them, without some sort of single-point-of-contact facilitator (not sure if this exists or how that works, throw me a frickn bone ppl.). Also, at the bottom, there tends to be more emergencies and narrower margins of safety (eg unplanned costs), so some cash is an absolute necessity.
Perhaps a path from basic subsides that encourages people to think about how to manage their own cashflow: a) credits for specific basics as a starting point and fallback and b) after education and coaching, incremental more fraction of cash (as atm/check card) given as budgeting and receipt tracking skills are demonstrated. If they slip (off budget or failure to track), it's back to plan a) and possibly trying to get back on plan b) again. This way, people can choose to become more accountable for managing their own existence rather than assuming big mother "always knowing best." It also has the side-effect of instilling some self-confidence, regardless if the person is otherwise capable or not of gainful employment. It might give just enough confidence to pull someone up out of their condition to a less stressful existence or perhaps occasionally into self-sufficiency.
I'd like to see hard data on this.
I've heard numerous anecdotes on both sides of the debate.
Eg, "lost faith in humanity at my first job in the liquor store, as soon as Welfare day hit"
This is dogma on the right, but it echoes surprisingly often from the left as well.