Hacker News Reader

Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

The linked article estimates tax liability for immigrant families and shows this is less than welfare consumed. Like I said, not great data, but I don't have anything better. If you do I'd love to see it.

Given that Head Start doesn't even have any measurable benefits, I definitely think those consuming it are a drain (if they pay less in taxes than Head Start costs).

View on HN

"Given that Head Start doesn't even have any measurable benefits, I definitely think those consuming it are a drain (if they pay less in taxes than Head Start costs)."

Given that Head Start doesn't have any measurable benefits, we should conclude that Head Start is a net drain. It doesn't follow that those consuming it are. Head Start is probably an insignificant portion of the costs society invests in these people, and taxes are probably an insignificant portion of the benefit these people provide.

> In conclusion, children who were enrolled for 2 years had higher scores than those who only stayed for a year, which shows that being enrolled in Head Start for a longer duration benefited the children.[1]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_Start_Program#Effectivenes...

Those effects were not present in the RCT. Even after reducing the p-value cutoff to 10% (rather than the standard 5%), only a few of the expected measures showed a statistically significant effect (some positive, some negative), and virtually nothing persisted as far as 1st grade.

http://www.acf.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/opre/executive_su...

(See also this comic if you want to point to a few blue and yellow cells in their charts. http://xkcd.com/882/ )

Reply on news.ycombinator.com