Thread by @ezraklein

So putting aside the question of whether Matt is uncivil on Twitter (he often is, he admits it), I want to say this is a mean and uncivil way to think about how other people live their lives and make their decisions. aei.org/poverty-studie…

https://twitter.com/swinshi/status/1357727342295187458

This idea that it's too cushy to be unemployed, or to be a single parent — or would be too cushy if we passed a child allowance so those families wouldn't live in poverty — is just awful. Dressing it up in technocratic language doesn't change that.

"Incentives matter." Ugh.

I believe "incentives matter," on the margin. But life circumstances matter more. Luck matters more.

I believe children shouldn't grow up in poverty. Every estimate we have suggests this policy would mean far fewer of them do. Scott doesn't have a credible estimate otherwise.

Indeed, as @dylanmatt and Matt and others have noted, there isn't an estimate of *anything* in his piece. Scott admits he has no idea if the plan would be good or bad for work or marriage, and he doesn't even touch child poverty, where the effect is obvious.

I have, both in life and reporting, met many people in the circumstances Romney's plan is trying to aid. And they are like everyone else: Decent, complicated, trying to do their best, overwhelmed, uncertain, living with the aftermath of good decisions and bad.

But the choices they face — compared to the choices Scott and I face — are often *terrible.* And whatever Scott thinks of the decisions they make given those terrible options, their children deserve far better than they have, and this policy would improve their lot.

So much pain is hiding in "would choose single parenthood or non-work except that the current safety net makes it unaffordable." When you talk to people making these choices, you find a sick kid at home, an abusive partner, mental health issues, hellish commutes, dying parents.

We have tons of evidence from other countries and our own on what happens when you just give people money. They use that money to make their children's lives better, and their own lives better. @annielowrey wrote a whole book on it. bookshop.org/books/give-peo…

And I'd add to what's there: this kind of poverty and struggle is terrible for people mentally. It drains the energy and resources they need to better their own lives.

See my conversation with Robert Sapolsky: podcasts.apple.com/cz/podcast/bes…

Or @m_sendhil: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the…

Making it "unaffordable" to refuse a bad job, or leave a bad marriage, or have a child you desperately want, doesn't help people. It hurts them.

If you want to help people find good work and build strong families, there are better ways than fighting a child allowance.

I don't want to be the civility police. But Matt is using uncivil language to make a kind point and Scott is using technocratic language to hide a cruel one.

I'd like people to be nicer on Twitter. But what I care about is that policy is kinder to those who need help.

I'd also recommend this @lymanstoneky thread. "Labor supply" is often a bad metric by which to judge policy. If you get more people to take jobs they wanted to refuse by making it unaffordable for them to wait, maybe that's bad

https://twitter.com/lymanstoneky/status/1357681759492730884

I remember this coming up in the Obamacare debate. CBO said Obamacare would reduce labor supply because some people who wanted to retire at 62 after decades in a jon they hated might do so because now they wouldn't lose their health insurance. The horror!