Which is better: policy or charity? It depends on how you look at it. As one would expect, the dopaminergic approach, policy, maximizes resources that are made available to the poor. Maximizing resources is what dopamine does best. In 2012, federal, state, and local governments spent about $1 trillion on antipoverty programs. That’s approximately $20,000 for every poor person in America. Charitable giving, on the other hand, was only $360 billion. The dopaminergic approach provided almost three times as much money. On the other hand, the value of help is more than dollars and cents.
