You wouldn't think off the bat that problems in Mexico can be solved by similar solutions here in New York. Yet that is exactly what Mayor Bloomberg is trying to do. Mexico instituted a program that pays mothers with children varying amounts depending on a host of factors that revolve around being 'good mothers'. The program has been touted as successful and replicated by other countries and endorsed by the World Bank. But could it work here in the five burroughs?
From The New York Times:
On Monday in Tepoztlán (pronounced teh-pos-LAHN), they watched as about 800 women waited for three hours or more in the auditorium to go up to get their money. If the women and their children have kept all their medical appointments, and if their children have stayed in school, the money is theirs to use as they wish. The awards range from 360 to 3,710 pesos (about $36 to $370), enough to buy food or shoes or other necessities. The size of the award depends on how many children they have and what level of school the children are in.
The program is 10 years old, has a budget of more than $3 billion a year and covers almost a quarter of all Mexicans.
It may seem strange that one of the world’s financial capitals should look to a small mountain town for answers to its own urban ills. But since this program got its start in rural Mexico in 1997, it has been heralded by the World Bank and others as a powerful model for fighting chronic poverty.
Outside evaluations have found that the program, called Oportunidades, has been successful in raising school attendance and nutrition levels. The percentage of Mexicans living in extreme poverty has fallen by 17 percentage points since 1996, when it reached 37 percent.
That sounds great for impoverished countries, but what does that have to do with New York, a city flush with cash but with a few that have next to nothing. Most candidates of the Oportunidades program live on less than $2 a day, even the homeless can get more than that begging on the streets.
Handing out money is a quick fix solution that won't serve a long-term problem. The programs that teach people how to get out of poverty is more in line with what I believe can help. Yet bribing people to attend them is another matter. I am glad that this is working in other countries, but we need something that is more tailored to the problems of impoverished New Yorkers. Perhaps Bloomberg can see something down there that can work but a carbon-copy certainly wouldn't. We already have programs that help the welfare of the poor on a day to day basis, which should be kept running smoothly, efficiently and kept well-funded.
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