Industries tied to in‑kind benefits—farmers (food stamps), home builders (housing subsidies), health providers, and teachers unions—form constituencies that resist rigorous evaluation of those programs. Cash transfers lack such secondary beneficiaries, so they get studied more and criticized when results are modest. This creates an evaluation asymmetry that biases policy toward in‑kind programs regardless of effectiveness.
— It reframes welfare debates around political incentives, not just evidence, and suggests reforms must mandate evaluation where organized interests prefer opacity.
Devorah Goldman
2025.10.16
72% relevant
The article details how nonprofit hospital systems benefit from tax exemptions and donations while resisting price transparency and pursuing aggressive collections—classic rent-seeking by a health‑provider sector that thrives on public subsidies and weak evaluation.
2025.10.07
50% relevant
Feeding Our Future’s alleged diversion of funds from a federally backed in‑kind program (school meals) underscores how intermediary-run, in‑kind benefits can be vulnerable to abuse and hard to police, echoing the broader claim that such programs create entrenched interests and oversight challenges.
Chris Pope
2025.10.02
55% relevant
The article describes states routing funds to hospital systems via Medicaid provider taxes and broad 'population health' waivers, a pattern where in‑kind providers benefit and oversight is weak—echoing how in‑kind programs create constituencies that resist rigorous evaluation.
Chris Pope
2025.09.16
64% relevant
By expanding Community Eligibility Provision funding and making meals free for all, states and districts maximize federal in‑kind subsidies (NSLP’s $4.69 per lunch) and entrench a government‑first delivery model, while the article argues key outcomes (diet quality, obesity) get little transparent evaluation—mirroring how in‑kind programs persist with weak scrutiny.
by Molly Parker, Capitol News Illinois, Julia Rendleman for ProPublica and Lylee Gibbs, Saluki Local Reporting Lab
2025.09.04
66% relevant
Federal crop insurance and commodity subsidies create a powerful farm constituency that sustains status‑quo payments even as land becomes unproductive; the article shows how programs to retire or convert land are underfunded and mired in bureaucracy, mirroring how in‑kind benefits persist despite weak effectiveness.
Oren Cass
2025.08.25
63% relevant
Cass opposes subsidizing commercial childcare (an in‑kind benefit with industry beneficiaries) and instead proposes a cash Family Income Supplemental Credit to give parents stay‑at‑home choice, aligning with the critique that in‑kind programs persist due to organized interests while cash is preferable but underused.
Ken Girardin
2025.08.22
50% relevant
By defending costly prevailing‑wage rules on federal projects and seeking laws that mandate dues, the Teamsters exemplify organized beneficiaries shaping policy to preserve rents, even when modernization (automation) or competitive pressures would otherwise discipline costs.
Matt Bruenig
2025.08.21
78% relevant
Kelsey Piper’s update that cash aid underperforms her expectations, contrasted with Matt Bruenig’s critique of the ‘investment’ frame (Heckman) and narrow outcome metrics, highlights how evaluation norms and interest-aligned programs can steer policy away from unconditional cash and toward in‑kind, provider-heavy interventions.
Arnold Kling
2025.08.20
100% relevant
Kling: “Programs that provide in-kind benefits create political constituencies... The problem with just giving cash to poor people is that no one else gets targeted benefits from that.”
Kelsey Piper
2025.08.19
60% relevant
Piper notes media preference for small positive pilots while larger, more credible cash trials show null or negative effects; this echoes the broader asymmetry where cash is rigorously evaluated and in‑kind systems often avoid equivalent scrutiny—shaping which programs get defended or expanded.
Arnold Kling
2025.08.17
78% relevant
Armin Rosen’s NYC figures (nonprofits receiving $20B public money; 17% of private-sector employment; faster wage growth) illustrate an expanding government‑funded ecosystem that creates its own political constituency—parallel to how in‑kind welfare beneficiaries resist evaluation and reform.
Robin Hanson
2025.08.10
50% relevant
By shifting decisions from bureaucratic programs to private insurance with market-priced audits, the proposal aims to sidestep agency capture and the entrenched interests that benefit from complex in-kind programs.
Nathan Gardels
2025.08.08
40% relevant
Shifting from in‑kind programs to universal capital accounts reframes welfare away from rent‑rich sectors toward portable, asset‑building pre‑distribution that’s harder for incumbents to capture.
eugyppius
2025.08.05
50% relevant
The NGO builds a fact-checking site with six staff and negligible audience yet sustains funding, illustrating how organized beneficiaries of niche programs can persist without rigorous impact evaluation.
Santi Ruiz
2025.07.31
75% relevant
The interview raises whether USAID relies too much on a small set of contractors and why evaluating program effectiveness is institutionally hard, directly echoing how in‑kind delivery creates vested interests that resist rigorous evaluation or cash-transfer alternatives.
Jason Crawford
2025.05.10
60% relevant
The piece calls for a YIMBY-like campaign to strip away anti-competitive vetoes (e.g., certificate-of-need laws cited via Institute for Justice) and restore price signals, aligning with the claim that entrenched provider interests bias policy toward opaque, ineffective in‑kind systems.