Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

The effects of living in a poor neighborhood

vox.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 139 posts

Re: The effects of living in a poor neighborhood

#61

Post by Terribledactyl »

lacker wrote: post #55

Hmm, wait a moment. 59% of white kids moved up. 43% of white kids moved down. Even accounting for rounding, there's no way to get those numbers. It's even worse in other places: 25% of black kids had parents who grew up in the bottom two levels and moved up at least one. 78% of black kids had parents who grew up in the top three levels and moved down at least one. Those two groups should sum to less than 100%, certai…

These numbers could be skewed from unequal number of children per parent in these different groups. Successful parents might have many more or fewer children.

Re: The effects of living in a poor neighborhood

#62

Post by squimmy »

lacker wrote: post #55

Hmm, wait a moment. 59% of white kids moved up. 43% of white kids moved down. Even accounting for rounding, there's no way to get those numbers. It's even worse in other places: 25% of black kids had parents who grew up in the bottom two levels and moved up at least one. 78% of black kids had parents who grew up in the top three levels and moved down at least one. Those two groups should sum to less than 100%, certai…

It could be an issue of imprecise wording.

For instance, perhaps 59% of white parents had kids who moved up, while 43% of white parents had kids who moved down.

This doesn't excuse the reporting, but it might explain it.

Re: The effects of living in a poor neighborhood

#63

Post by ASpring »

mjevans wrote: post #49

While the data might show these correlations I disagree on the premise that is reached as a result. It is not just economic stratification, but cultural differences. Those who have great wealth, and are not celebrity, tend to respect education, or at least attending 'upper tier academic institutions' for their upper society connections. Among this group of people knowledge /is/ power and it is respected. In economica…

> I suggest that the culture must change to enshrine knowledge and intellect

How do you suggest to do this?

Re: The effects of living in a poor neighborhood

#64

Post by cgriswald »

lacker wrote: post #55

Hmm, wait a moment. 59% of white kids moved up. 43% of white kids moved down. Even accounting for rounding, there's no way to get those numbers. It's even worse in other places: 25% of black kids had parents who grew up in the bottom two levels and moved up at least one. 78% of black kids had parents who grew up in the top three levels and moved down at least one. Those two groups should sum to less than 100%, certai…

It really isn't clear to me whether it is the children moving up or down relative to their parents, or the parents moving up and down within their own lifetime.

Either way, children have two parents, so could be represented in both groups. Likewise, parents can have multiple children, and one sibling could move up while another moved down.

Re: The effects of living in a poor neighborhood

#65

Post by ddlatham »

squimmy wrote: post #62
lacker wrote: post #55

Hmm, wait a moment. 59% of white kids moved up. 43% of white kids moved down. Even accounting for rounding, there's no way to get those numbers. It's even worse in other places: 25% of black kids had parents who grew up in the bottom two levels and moved up at least one. 78% of black kids had parents who grew up in the top three levels and moved down at least one. Those two groups should sum to less than 100%, certai…

It could be an issue of imprecise wording. For instance, perhaps 59% of white parents had kids who moved up, while 43% of white parents had kids who moved down. This doesn't excuse the reporting, but it might explain it.

It seems very unlikely that "78% of black kids had parents who grew up in the top [60%] and moved down at least one."

Perhaps it should have been written:

25% of black kids [who] had parents [that] grew up in the bottom two levels [] moved up at least one [but] 59% of [such] white kids moved up.

78% of black kids [who] had parents [that] grew up in the top three levels [] moved down at least one [but] 43% of [such] white kids moved down.

But I agree it's unclear and this is just speculation.

Re: The effects of living in a poor neighborhood

#66

Post by ASpring »

lacker wrote: post #55

Hmm, wait a moment. 59% of white kids moved up. 43% of white kids moved down. Even accounting for rounding, there's no way to get those numbers. It's even worse in other places: 25% of black kids had parents who grew up in the bottom two levels and moved up at least one. 78% of black kids had parents who grew up in the top three levels and moved down at least one. Those two groups should sum to less than 100%, certai…

It's poor reporting. The statements about white children should be qualified the same way the author attempted to qualify the statements about black children.

http://www.pewtrusts.org/~/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/wwwpew...

Re: The effects of living in a poor neighborhood

#67

Post by dang »

jamiequint wrote: post #44
dang wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've banned this account. Single-purpose accounts are not allowed on HN, especially when their single purpose is to post political rants. If you want to participate on HN in good faith, respecting the rules about civil, substantive discourse, you're welcome to email us at hn@ycombinator.com.

Did he edit his comment? He's obviously failing at reading comprehension, but I don't see how his comment is a political rant in any way. He's (incorrectly) pointing out Vox's bias in the way they present data. Personally, I also don't trust anything on Vox after they posted this debacle of statistics last year: http://www.vox.com/2015/10/3/9444417/gun-violence-united-sta... which attempted to make a point on why gun…

It isn't just a question of that one comment. Even so, the amount of name-calling and froth in there qualifies it for rant status in my book. YMMV of course.

I would hate to think that too, and we try our best to apply the rules evenly across political divides. Comments need to be civil and substantive; this one was neither, and our tolerance for someone breaking the guidelines goes down as the pattern of breaking them goes up. Users who feel that we misread their intention and genuinely want to post civil, substantive comments don't typically have a hard time persuading us to unban them.

Re: The effects of living in a poor neighborhood

#68

Post by jlg23 »

ksou32 wrote: post #57
themartorana wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Huge disclaimer. This is how it was explained to me by my Indian host while I was working in India. I remarked to someone basically the same thing - not only was it incredible that slums - corrugated-cardboard-house slums - sat right next to the 5 star hotel my company put me up in, but they were relatively safe . One night we were walking through a slum because an Indian gentleman wanted to expound on my remark, and…

>He remarked that I wouldn't find the same type of sense of community in slums in Muslim parts of India, because their beliefs about their poverty and their lot in life was different. Keep in mind he's probably biased in some way here.

The comment opened with a "huge disclaimer" and closed with a long paragraph that show that s/he is aware of this.

Re: The effects of living in a poor neighborhood

#69

Post by btilly »

Snargorf wrote: post #29
mc32 wrote: post #12

I can dig it. Living in a bad neighborhood exposes you to an in-ideal living atmosphere. The people you are around influence you in many ways and one of those ways is the wrong way --not because people in the neighborhood want bad things for their brethren --but because their way of life and expectations impinge on the growth of the new young people in the neighborhood with respect to the wider society. Also, it's wo…

Actually, wealth inequality in the West was higher before World War One. They called it the 'gilded age' for a reason. It only got a lot more equal because WW1, the Depression, and WW2 combined destroyed most of the stuff the rich people had. Only recently has wealth inequality re-approached pre-WW1 levels. Source: Piketty.

It only got a lot more equal because WW1, the Depression, and WW2 combined destroyed most of the stuff the rich people had.

Don't forget 92% marginal tax rates on income over $1 million/year.

That was slashed to 72% under JFK. But regional inequality only took took off after it was slashed to 50% then to 28% by Reagan.

Today the rich have lower tax rates than average Americans.

Re: The effects of living in a poor neighborhood

#70

Post by ThrustVectoring »

grahamburger wrote: post #60
dragonwriter wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Section 8 vouchers are a means-tested benefit program where the net benefit decreases with outside income, and, as such, create a disincentive (especially since people qualified for them also, nearly invariably, are on other means-tested benefit programs whose benefits also decline with additional income -- sometimes, in aggregate, leading to a greater than 1:1 decline in benefits compared to increased income) to pro…

This is the thing I really don't get about UBI. It really, really doesn't remove means testing. Your tax burden is still means based, and that determines whether your ubi is net positive or net negative. So again, your net benefit decreases with increased outside income, because you're paying more in taxes.

It's not means testing that's the problem. The problem is that a linear combination of benefit programs with a below-unity benefit-to-income slope has an above-unity slope, which means that making an additional dollar disqualifies you from more money than the dollar gives you. The benefit programs as a whole aren't designed holistically to avoid this (and other) traps, so any welfare overhaul that consolidates multiple independent programs into a systematic whole should solve these problems.
Post reply on HN