ATL Bear said:
BrooksBearLives said:
ATL Bear said:
BrooksBearLives said:
ATL Bear said:
BrooksBearLives said:
ATL Bear said:
BrooksBearLives said:
D. C. Bear said:
BrooksBearLives said:
D. C. Bear said:
Waco1947 said:
ATL Bear said:
There is a clear, fundamental basis of fairness and equality that exists in the US. That cannot be argued. We are now trying to guarantee outcomes in a competitive economy which will never happen. We're also measuring poverty against a highly advanced income and standard of living scale. That literally means that our success has made our poor the wealthiest poor in the world by a factor of 10+ in comparison.
We have one of the most advanced legal systems that has both criminal and civil recourse for those subject to injustice, unfairness, fraud, or corruption. Not to mention a system of laws that favors fairness, equality, and justice.
Does that mean that everything is perfect? Of course not. Will the path to success be more difficult for some than others? Of course. But from a purely systemic perspective, the opportunity to better your lot in life is as available as ever, and merit/performance/work is rewarded.
I believe the visibility of our wealth and success as individuals and as a society has crept into an entitled expectation of certain comfort without sacrifice. Ironically, this approach/perspective has and will lead to greater disparity between haves and have nots, despite the "have nots" having quite a bit from a global comparative perspective.
"Entitled expectation". Do have any proof or is this simply a straw man opinion of people.
Sadly, yes.
Prove it.
"I tried hard, why didn't you give me an A?"
How old are you? If you are of a certain cohort, you will have seen it for yourself.
Sigh. I said none of those things. You're purposefully mischaracterizing my statements, and you're the only one who would fall for it.
I said someone smart enough and hard-working enough to do the work should have it pay off. If you're working your ass off full time, you should be able to pay your bills and move up the ladder.
We HAVE to reward hard work. It shouldn't take "luck" to get ahead. Hard work should suffice.
If we aren't intent on rewarding hard work, what are we even doing? We are training a society to give up, because working hard doesn't pay off. We're literally saying it's all a luck game. Either you have it or you don't. Work doesn't matter at all.
We do and it happens all the time in this country. Society isn't giving up, society is lowering the expectation ratio between effort and outcome of that effort. The minimum wage/living wage argument is a classic example of that.
The data doesn't bear that out.
Economic mobility is low and falling. People have two jobs and still can't afford to live.
Y'all don't see it. I guess because no one knows anyone who is poor? Idk. But it is fact. You can state it's possible all you want. Anything is possible. But it's not happening like it should.
The data does bear out tremendous social mobility. What the studies you fixate on are the ability to move from the lowest quintile of earnings to the highest. That's not the only way to measure social mobility. Also, most of the data is flawed. The CBO puts out the most comprehensive data on this, and it clearly shows income growth and economic mobility. You also seem to focus on the educational mobility in some of your data, which I view as independent of economic mobility.
And I'm around poverty on a somewhat regular basis. Real poverty. And because of that, I have a perspective on social and income opportunity that isn't skewed by the expectations of our high income standard of living, or the things we take for granted when trying to better our individual lives.
Please show your work.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/we-arent-stagnating-after-all/2018/11/18/055edb38-e9dc-11e8-a939-9469f1166f9d_story.html?utm_term=.6a3c80e53798
https://www.frbsf.org/economic-research/publications/economic-letter/2017/october/missing-growth-from-creative-destruction/
https://medium.com/@russroberts/do-the-rich-capture-all-the-gains-from-economic-growth-c96d93101f9c
https://danieljmitchell.wordpress.com/2015/12/16/biggest-takeaway-from-pew-report-on-income-trends-making-america-more-like-france-wont-help-the-middle-class/
These aren't commentary on economic mobility. They're talking about an economy which has gotten better (11 straight years of improvement since the Obama admin turned it around).
But the gains have been incredibly uneven. Wealth inequality is near all-time record levels. -which only backs UP my point.
Economic mobility is low -and not at all reflective of the 11 straight years of growth. Economists of ALL stripes are agreeing on this.
Not sure you read these. They specifically address the points in discussion, including how data used to support the idea of stagnating income and mobility is flawed. I also like how the San Fran fed reserve discusses how creative destruction has hindered the actual measure of productivity and growth because we can't accurately account for material product improvements and efficiencies picked up in technology. Why that's important is that it means inflation could be overstated, thus meaning wage growth would be materially higher.
The other important point is mobility being measured at the individual level not the simple flat point in time group assessment. People are transitioning through time to higher wage points. They might not move from the lowest quintile to the highest, but they are improving their lot in life and being economically mobile. The rich are getting richer, no doubt. But others that don't start out rich are becoming wealthy, and a large percentage of those in the lowest income rings are moving up into higher incomes and by default improving their lives.
I think a fascinating point is that a material portion of the lowest tier of income levels are being filled by immigrant labor. Several directions to take that fact, but one clear one is that the domestic labor force is moving away from the lowest quintile, and that immigrant labor is both fulfilling a need and suppressing wage growth.
The first article by Samuelson (a hard-core conservative who hasn't been relevant since the 90's) tried to make a point about stagnant wages segueing that wages for the poor have increased. -he's arguing a point no one is making. It's not that wages haven't increased -it's that REAL wages haven't increased. Wages have increased. But the cost of everything else has as well. Housing. Gas. INSURANCE. The cost of education. He also conveniently tap-dances around the concept of wage disparity.
I was talking about economic mobility. He doesn't discuss that at all.
The second article "the economic letter" addresses productivity gains -which was fascinating- buy had absolutely nothing to do with economic mobility. In fact, it highlights the bull**** situation we have where American productivity gains HAVENT been met with commensurate wage gains. It's exacerbating wage disparity.
The third article makes an argument not really for economic mobility so much as it attacks the agreed-upon methods for measuring it. And I'm all for interrogation of accepted methods. Absolutely.
But the point it tries to make doesn't land. It starts with the LOWEST of the low and trumpets gains made by a percentage of people with literacy nowhere to go but up: immigrant children. The argument doesn't really land for a number of reasons, obvious to any reader of this board.
But I'll give you 50% on that one.
The last article was a blog by some dude I have never heard of. And it didn't really argue saying there IS more economic mobility, but rather just attacks suggestions to assuage the lack thereof.
So out of the four articles you posted, one actually attempts to counter the accepted idea that economic mobility in the US is low and dropping (it may have ticked up slightly by this time next year as wages are FINALLY increasing, but the results of that won't be known for some time.