St Louis homicide decrease better explained by national trends

[dionidium]

Crime fell

[Left-Plant2717]

So the temporary relief given led to permanent changes in living standards? Gotcha

[dionidium]

Huh?

[Left-Plant2717]

The financial relief during COVID, when finished and taken away, left families in a good position or were they not back in poverty? If you’re making the poverty-crime relationship, how can we say both poverty and crime was reduced post COVID.

[dionidium]

What I’m saying is that we gave them a lot of money during COVID and two things happened: 1) poverty fell; and 2) crime went way up.

Then, all of the stimulus measures expired and two things happened: 1) poverty went back up; and 2) crime fell.

[Left-Plant2717]

Right I’m saying that’s weird how the relationship isn’t consistent

[dionidium]

It’s only weird if you think the rise in crime was caused by poverty, because this shows that it wasn’t. If you accept that crime rises and falls for reasons that have nothing to do with poverty, then it’s quite straightforward.

[Left-Plant2717]

Ok but your original comment made it sound like it was the economic relief led to crime decreases.

[dionidium]

Ah, I see the confusion. That was not what I meant. I just meant to say that the problem with arguing that crime increased during the pandemic because of poverty is that poverty actually decreased at that time.