A more scientific look at anti-poverty p rograms

“I'd like to make this a non-Fuego thread, but I'm trying to be realistic.

One big problem with anti-poverty programs is that they are usually justified and "sold" by anecdotes, or unscientific use of statistics. Here is an article about the use of randomized trials in studying anti-poverty programs (this is considered essential to testing the effectiveness of individual therapies, especially drugs):

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa004&articleID=000ECBA5-A101-137B-A10183414B7F0000”