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Did you look at the "randomized" cohort breakdown of the ~half of the already heavily screened applicants from a pool of already screened applicants (homeless shelters) they were able to contact for the length of the study? There are a few blazing red flags of confounded and polluted data, e.g., gender split, first time homeless, "want to be employed," annual income, receiving income assistance, receiving disability assistance, and more.
If you did a "randomized cohort controlled" study and your demo breakdown in the participants who lasted to the end of it were this different even after you have heavily pre-screened an already screened group from which you recruited participants, you should go back and try again because your randomization process either didn't work or your methodology influenced the results to such an extent as to confound the effect you were "studying," especially given the statistical power were talking about.
As far as I can tell, they're using individual participant outcomes while randomizing at the cluster level using an already small sample size and calculating the stat sig based on the participant n instead of adjusting downwards due to likely correlative effects from the clustering itself. They have different inclusion data for control/cash groups, i.e., control group had to complete a post-survey whereas the cash group were included if they simply received the cash, which is troubling because the groups had 20% different response rates which makes me think if they had the same inclusion criteria the left-over numbers either didn't produce significance even with their p games or a result they didn't like. They fiddle with a bunch of other stuff in odd ways which make me suspicious they're fiddling with an agenda, but I'm not diving into the appendix info, and I'm not going to request raw data they claim they will give out.
This study has an obvious agenda, the purpose of this study is to affect public policy, every methodology decision will bias the results in a certain way the authors want, and the abstract is written for journalists who share that agenda to push it likely glossing over all of the caveats which the authors littered throughout the paper rendering its application to policy all-but worthless even if that data wasn't poor (and it is).
It's a made-for-journalists "study" designed to create evidence to push an agenda. The study is very underpowered even if they didn't expect high attrition rates. These people aren't morons; they know what they're doing and it's high time we stop pretending they don't.
no, the humanities and "reputable scientific research" published in "reputable" journals earned skepticism if not outright hostility all on their own with this published study being yet another example of why
arguing that this study is roughly up to the standards of this area of research and writing isn't a defense of the study, but a condemnation of it, its authors, and the journal which published it
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