What Money Can’t Buy

Susan E. Mayer is Associate Professor, Harris Graduate School of Public Policy Studies, University of Chicago.

• Introduction America's Response to Poverty From Moral Guidance to Income Support The Cycle Repeats Changes in Government Expenditures on Poor Children How Rich and Poor Children Differ Measures of Children's Well-Being How Large Are the Differences? Why Parental Income Might Be Important Conventional Estimates of the Effect of Income What Other Studies Show Re-estimating the Conventional Model Changes in Parental Income The "True" Effect of Income The Source of Income Income before and after an Outcome Income and Material Well-Being How Families Spend Additional Money Income and Material Hardship Living Conditions and Children 's Outcomes Income, Psychological Well-Being, and Parenting Practices Income and Parental Stress Income and Parenting Practices More Evidence on the "True" Effect of Income Trends in Parents' Income and Children's Outcomes State Welfare Benefits and Children's Outcomes What Social Experiments Show Helping Poor Children Raising Parental Income How Much Is Enough? Changing Parents' Noneconomic Characteristics Where the Trouble Begins Appendix: Description of the Samples and Variables Appendix: Conventional Estimates of the Effect of Income Appendix: The "True" Effect of Income Appendix: Index Construction Appendix: More Evidence on the "True" Effect of Income Notes References Index

Everyone involved in 'welfare reform' could usefully read What Money Can't Buy, a study by economist Susan Mayer of the University of Chicago. Its message is somber: as a society, we are fairly helpless to correct the worst problems of child poverty. This is not a new insight, but by confirming it, Mayer discredits much of the welfare debate's overwrought rhetoric. `Welfare reform' may raise or lower poverty a bit (we can't say which), but neither its supposed virtues nor its alleged vices are powerful enough to alter the status quo dramatically. What's impressive about Mayer's study is that it contradicts both her politics and her history...[and] demolishes much of the welfare debate's rhetorical boilerplate, liberal and conservative.