Ok Here's The Deal On U.S Income Inequality

This may dispel some myths on inequality related to mobility.

 

I wasn't too surprised by the part on geographics affecting mobility. People in America have always migrated to the areas of the country that provided the best access to the professions that they're interested in. If you want opportunities in high tech fields moving to the Bay Area in California will do you more good than staying in Mississippi.

 

Motion

Sorry but rather than dispel supposed ‘myths’ the paper seems to just confirm many of the things I and others have said here about social mobility.

From my reading it seems to identify several factors that have an effect on social mobility one of which is inequality, the others seem to be -

Segregation

Quality of education/schooling

Community integration

Social stability/sex education

And I’d say that many of those will be affected by economic inequality.

The authors do say that a lot more work needs to be done but comment - the factors that erode the middle class hamper intergenerational mobility more than the factors that lead to income growth in the upper tail.

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Jim Zarroli says that the “new study finds that contrary to widespread belief, it's no harder to climb the economic ladder in the United States today than it was 20 years ago”

20 years ago

Twenty years ago was 1994 I’d say that to me by then social mobility in the US was already stalling or had already stalled for many. When the US was doing well economically and there was a huge rise in the number of the middle class was in the period from the end of WWII to the 1970-80’s when inequality began to rise rapidly as neoliberal ideas and policies took hold.

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Also as Jim Zarroli points out the US has half the level of social mobility compared with some countries with greater levels of equality such as Denmark.

 

I notice that you didn't quote this part:

Balbus has already said it.

You need to go back more than 40 years to find a time when there was something approximating opportunity for all in the US... and that was mostly for the people who were born in the 30s and 40s-- the boomers. But even then, it was largely a myth... salaries stagnated and conditions grew worse, but the boomers didn't notice it so much because they were getting rich on their houses. There was also more unionized labor-- you could work at a factory and provide for your family, unlike now.

http://www.stanford.edu/class/polisci120a/immigration/Median Household Income.pdf

I would say that especially after the 80s, mobility decreased quite a great deal for everyone... thanks to the attack on unionized labor, Reaganomics, free trade agreements, the rise of China, etc. You used to be able to get a unionized job, work for a decade or so, and save up enough for your own business. Now you can get a shitty, precarious part-time job that barely lets you break even. As you can see in the chart, incomes have stagnated and have basically been completely devalued by the rising costs of housing, food and gas.

On the other hand, Canada and the Scandinavian countries don't have this problem to the same extent... mostly because of things like universal health care and higher taxes on wealth.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/repo...s-the-american-dream-lives-on/article4171456/

This is exactly what 'letting the free market take care of it' does... how some people can't see this is beyond me. But then, it must be the underfunded schools they attend that help to perpetuate this.

 

Yes you can say that unionized manufacturing jobs decreased because of attacks on them but a good number also decreased as a result of technology. Computers and robotics have played a part in reducing the numbers of workers needed for certain manufacturing and other jobs.

Unions Fight To Keep Jobs in Tech Age - ABC News



Canada and those Scandiavian countries do have some things about them that the U.S could learn from. One is their lower teen pregnancy rates. Teen pregnancy is a big contributor to child poverty in the U.S. Many of these teen mothers dropout,get low paying jobs and with this them and their children are stuck in poverty. Scandinavian teen pregnancies are much lower so there's less poverty in those countries related to teen pregnancies.


I don't know if the U.S will move to the type of larger gov't you see in Canada. Even that link mentioned that there were issues with larger deficits related to that Canadian system.

How would America prevent this with gov't playing a larger role?


As far as education. I think Americans will need to focus on implementing approaches that have been shown to be successful in other American schools. Here's an example of an inner city school that is getting good results.

Medgar Evers School is Rare Inner City Success Story

 

Well, I would say that to some extent the effectiveness of a policy isn't so simple as taxation/no taxation or free market/regulation so much as how the markets are regulated or how the people are taxed.

The same goes for education... the lazy way to try to solve the problem is to simply throw money at it, but it's not that simple. You need to actually come up with a solution based on research and an understanding of the problem-- and at the same time, it doesn't mean that just because people have found a creative, cost-effective solution to their problem that it's okay to start cutting jobs or paying people less.

I would say that a large deficit isn't as much of a problem as massive amounts of poverty, inequality, lower life expectancy, less access to health care and an overall lower standard of living for the majority.

 

I might soon have to go back to Niagara Falls to look for my glasses. But then again the black woman helped me save six bucks on the butter (margarine) at the Loblaws public store and then promptly I left the debit card on the conveyor belt. It's her fault. She distracted me.:sunny::bobby:

Actually, I think that I'm a man with a respectable search for a new home. Niagara falls is a distracting temptation.

 

Motion

Thanks in large part to government sponsored educational programmes and greater access to contraception teenage pregnancy in the US has dropped dramatically in the last decade (44 percent drop from 1991 to 2010) although they are nine times as many teen mothers in America than in other developed countries.

Some argue that the rates are high because such mothers get public assistance but other countries have rather more generous public assistance but vastly smaller rates of teen pregnancy so that argument doesn’t seem to stand up to scrutiny.

(The US rate is 39 births per 1,000 girls, ages 15 through 19 BUT Sweden has a rate below 8 and the Netherlands is close to 4.)

Others point to studies indicating that high teenage pregnancy rates seems linked to religious beliefs against contraception. But many Catholic countries like Spain and Italy and Ireland have lower teen pregnancy rates than the US.

Education (especially sex education) as I indicate seems to be helping but I think it can only go so far.

But let us look at it from a equality/social mobility stand point – here is something from the National Bureau Of Economic Research. [My Bold]

'We describe some recent analysis indicating that the combination of being poor and living in a more unequal (and less mobile) location, like the United States, leads young women to choose early, non-marital childbearing at elevated rates, potentially because of their lower expectations of future economic success. Consistent with this view, the most rigorous studies on the topic find that teen childbearing has very little, if any, direct negative economic consequence. If it is explained by the low economic trajectory that some young women face, then it makes sense that having a child as a teen would not be an additional cause of poor economic outcomes. These findings lead us to conclude that the high rate of teen childbearing in the United States matters mostly because it is a marker of larger, underlying social problems.'

http://www.nber.org/papers/w17965

 

So I guess this means that they have finally begun to affect an agenda more consistent with that for which you needed to have been born apart from in order to properly channel the aforementioned 'they', as if you were somehow inclined towards the effect which, while not necessarily implicit, could have produced somewhat uncharacteristically a separate effect not altogether removed from that of which you were once a part.

 

As far as poverty itself causing more teen pregnancies:

I lean more towards this view. Even if many teen pregnancies are being caused by young girl's percieved lack of future opportunities then getting pregnant at 16 and then dropping out of high school will only compound this feeling. I think you have to start changing things by preventing these girls from getting pregnant before graduation. A girl with a diploma will have more of a brighter outlook on her future because she knows that with that diploma she has more options. Whether this be better job options or getting into college or trade/vocational school. So I say you turn this around by reducing the numbers of teen girls getting pregnant in the first place with comprehensive sex ed then hopefully more will graduate. Then from there they will be in a better position to move ahead with that diploma.

I will also add that it's not the best thing for teen girls to get pregnant at 18 or 19 right after high school. Because then the baby can complicate their post high school education. In an ideal world it would be good if more girls waited until their early 20's(21-22) at least before having their first kid. By this age they probably would have finished some type of post high school education.

 

Scandinavian countrys encourage the use of condoms and teach sex education starting at a much earlier age than is acceptable to a lot of Americans.

 

Just because 85 people have more money than half the worlds population doesn't mean anything is wrong. Just shut up and get a job. Nothing to see here.

 

Oh but they earned every penny they are really smart 'n stuff.

 

What people 'have' is a result of what people 'do' with the money they have.
Many upper middle class persons have higher incomes than Bill Gates, and Warren Buffett, for example, yet are worth much less.
Those who work in unionized workplaces and earn the same wages over time often vary greatly from one another in what they are worth. Some, as I have noticed, only get deeper in debt over time, while others become much wealthier and remain debt free.

More often than not, it appears that the intent of these forums is simply to produce and label an enemy based primarily on what someone has, earns, or is worth.

The word 'greed' appears quite often in posts, but it would appear that many, if not most posts are based entirely on the word 'envy'.

As I watch the U.S. Federal government increase the minimum 'hourly' wage, I see the effect it has in raising the local minimum 'daily' wage here. Keep it up and there will be even more jobs going abroad. The label 'made in the U.S.A.' is being replaced by 'designed in the U.S.A.', and eventually even that will probably disappear, creating greater income equality for even more U.S. citizens.

 

Where's any semblance of balance in a system like we have now? Is it OK then, for so few to have so much, while others have nothing. You're against a minimum wage hike for those that do the actual work? Slavery I suppose, was/would be the ideal system for those for whom billions are not and will never be enough. I see it differently than you ---I believe if we're going to keep a capitalist system, there needs to be a working, well paid middle class that can actually buy products of the system. Not a system that uses the threat of moving jobs elsewhere if workers want a living wage. And not a system where a few paper-shufflers can wreak havoc on the world economy, as happened. I can't figure out what you actually want for a middle class, except for them to shut up and work for whatever the "royal" class deigns to proffer, however inadequate. There is, has been and continues to be a monied, politically connected class that can, IMO, be compared to the robber barons of yesteryear. This has to change and I believe it will. How, will be determined by the response to the continuing inequity.

 

Most people who believe in wealth redistribution just want the majority to be able to not worry about the basics-- they don't need or want yachts and mansions and summer homes and private jets and trust funds.

I also hate that some people think that they need to compete with people who are wealthier than they are... but it's part of the culture of greed that infects some people through their televisions and the Internet. It doesn't mean that everyone thinks it's great.

The left is mostly upset that people can't afford decent health care, or underfunded schools, or that the government thinks it's better to solve problems with policemen instead of social programs, etc. It has nothing to do with wanting everyone to be rich, or wanting to be rich themselves... and if it does, then they've got it all wrong.

Leftist ideas are typically most popular with the upper middle class and the intellectuals. You'll notice that the big university towns and urban centers where people have the highest level of education tend to vote left. These people are already quite comfortable and mostly object to the exploitation of people like StpLSD25, who buys the populist rhetoric because he doesn't know any better and happily supports his own oppressors in the name of 'freedom'.

I know that I certainly have never posted about myself wanting all kinds of extravagances or properties or servants or mansions. I'm pretty happy with what I have right now, and having more than I do would just feel wasteful. MOST people in the world are happy with a car, enough to eat, a decent-sized home, good schools for their kids and maybe an iPad for Christmas.

If you want to attack people who don't agree with you, then you really need to do a better job of paying attention to what they're saying.

 

And someone gave a thumbs down to the idea that what's needed is a "working, well paid middle class?" How thoughtful.

 

That is very true, but…

Wait… what? Maybe I don’t go around in the same circles you do, or ask people what income they have (though during my career in the stock market I was well aware of the annual income ranges of many people in many different levels of economic class). But in my experience the people who make incomes at the levels that Buffett and Gates do are secure in their positions in the upper class.

Having said that I will say this in favor of your comment---an individual’s wealth creation is heavily dependent on how he/she sees him/herself. If a person makes more money than is befitting of their own psychological perception of how they stand financially then they are likely to defeat their own attempts to attain wealth. This is why lotto winners tend to lose all that money in a matter of a year or two or three. They do things, often subconsciously, to bring them back in line with their own image of themselves.

Changing that self-image is an important part to wealth creation. This is also part of why your following comment is true----then again, there is also a matter of being responsible, or even knowing how to be responsible with one’s money:

Now for this:

(In the voice of the Hispanic immigrant cleaning lady on Family Guy “No, no, no, no. It’s not right. No, no, no…” (It’s amazing that I had an elderly Dutch aunt who would have said the exact same thing in her Northern Low German accent---and had many of the same mannerisms. Yeah, we used to make fun of her too… rest her soul.)

I don’t need a yacht (I’ve got a 26’ MacGregor with room to sleep 5 comfortably), I am not envious of their wealth (I have all the money I need, I have retired to spend more time writing, and my portfolio grows steadily), I do not need their power and influence (I’ve had a taste of it, and I did not like the person I was becoming when I had it), I am not envious of their affluence or their possessions (I have my own collection of fine art, antiques, and antiquities. Though I would like to find a nice Fragonard that clearly expresses the subliminal and blatant sexual implications he would paint).

I regularly write about the greed and the Robber Baron attitudes that have taken over America’s general quality of life and the course of our politics. Trickle Down Economics has been very successful for the upper levels of America’s economic landscape. But it has been terrible to even America’s Middle Class, not to mention America’s poor. There are a lot of uncanny similarities between the America of today and the America of the late 1800’s when the Robber Barons then held power.

I am not some crazy conspiracy theorist---for example, I can tell you how good of a job the Federal Reserve has done (we just went through a depression-creating Credit Crisis and came out of it without deflation, and without a serious economic collapse), and the fallacies of going back to a commodity-based currency.

I think a lot of the wealth disparity is testament to the success of the stock market from the 1980’s on. Anyone could have participated, only the upper class consistently did. Unfortunately, all of that wealth creation enabled the purchase of congressmen, political parties, and too much control.

If you can’t see the obvious, then I guess you are doomed to wander with the other sheep.

Oh no---soon we will have to wait 2 or 3 days to get a hamburger, and our hotels will all go bankrupt as they have to ship out the rooms one by one to China to get them cleaned… (OK----now I’m just being mean----but I couldn’t help it… sorry.)

 

I think the obvious is seen by all, but there are many differing views of how best to deal with the obvious. I tend to not wander with either the Left or the Right herd of sheep.

Irrational isn't mean.

 

Oh Indie not again with the same old rubbish…

A baby born into advantage has done nothing to earn that advantage.

The greatest effect on a person’s life is where and to whom they are born. This can give someone advantages or disadvantages that can affect their whole lives and their possibility of them having success or failure, long before they have the independence to take certain actions themselves. Warren Buffett was the son of a US Representative, Bill Gates was born to well to do family his father a prominent lawyer his mother served on the board of directors for First Interstate BancSystem and his grandfather had been a national bank president.

It seems to me that their life stories would have been a lot different if they had been born to a badly educated unemployed family in Tchula, Mississippi.

Not everyone born into advantage does well (or as well as Warren and Bill) but advantage does give an advantage and you can see that advantage statistically.

There are rags to riches stories but statistically they don’t make a dent in the overall picture.

Can you back this up?

Is this about that con of claiming everything they use is company owned or receive recompense in other ways than direct salary? “For example, in 2010–11 Oracle Founder and CEO Larry Ellison made only $1 in salary, but earned over $77 million in other forms of compensation”

I don’t give a fuck what people earn here, I just try and work out if they can defend the ideas they promote from criticism in any rational or reasonable way.

YOU CAN’T

(oh and please don’t claim you have because we all know you can produce absolutely no evidence of that)

You have tried this canard many times and it doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.

This slur is often used by the supporters of wealth to hide the fact that they have no rational arguments. They try to imply that those who want to limit the power and influence of wealth on US society and politics are only doing it out of ‘envy’ not because they feel it would be good for the society and politics of the US

A society that is geared toward giving advantage to wealth to the detriment of all others is not likely to be or remain healthy.