New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited • Hacker News Board

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#71

Post by wskinner » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 8:56 PM UTC

glup wrote: post #6

jrcii wrote: post #2

Welcome to planet Earth and the immutable human condition that's persisted in every society since the dawn of civilization. Their findings could have big implications for how the government addresses poverty. This is only of interest to anyone because it's used as ammunition for various political agendas.

I find this perspective frighteningly cynical and self-perpetuating. Government policy is one of the few mechanisms that has the possibility to address (if not fix) systemic inequality. And I think there's broad agreement across the political spectrum that inequality is a problem; rather, there are disagreements about how to best address it (social welfare and regulation vs. efficient markets). This isn't ammunition…

"This isn't ammunition for political agendas---improving equality should be a central objective function of any democratic political system."

- proceeds to advocate a particular political agenda. While "government should promote equality" is a statement virtually everyone would agree with, how much equality, what else to compromise in order to get it, and what equality even means are in fact not widely agreed upon.

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#72

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 8:56 PM UTC

glup wrote: post #6

jrcii wrote: post #2

Welcome to planet Earth and the immutable human condition that's persisted in every society since the dawn of civilization. Their findings could have big implications for how the government addresses poverty. This is only of interest to anyone because it's used as ammunition for various political agendas.

I find this perspective frighteningly cynical and self-perpetuating. Government policy is one of the few mechanisms that has the possibility to address (if not fix) systemic inequality. And I think there's broad agreement across the political spectrum that inequality is a problem; rather, there are disagreements about how to best address it (social welfare and regulation vs. efficient markets). This isn't ammunition…

[deleted]

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#73

Post by m_mueller » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 8:57 PM UTC

mc32 wrote: post #25

jessriedel wrote: post #16

This phenomena (that children are not statistically independent of their grandparents even when controlling for parents) has already been found to be robustly true in Europe and some eastern countries. Gregory Clark wrote a book on it that was widely discussed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Son_Also_Rises_(book) The point is that families transmit something across multiple (> 5 generations) that's responsible for…

Often times people will compare with Europe when it advances their agenda, or ignore Asia if it advances their pov or just focus on America when it's convenient. Seldom will people do cross country comparisons. So, whether your issue is guns, drugs, police brutality, censorship, inequality, bias, gender equality, etc. People tend to focus the studies in such a way to make their case and ignore things which would make…

Part of the reason why I have not much respect of social sciences. Scientific rigor there seems rather flawed. Even the fact that the topics and tabus change like a slow fashion cycle shows that annealing the truth isn't really the highest commandment there.

A publishing system that treats repeating and potentially nullifying old studies the same as new findings, would go a long way though. There's also no reason why it has to be so linear. Why can't a reviewer accept, but ask the question 'what abou Europe?' publicly, to which thr same or other researchers could attach their studies and get on a fast track to acceptance as well? You know, like an Academic wikipedia in shape of a journal.

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#74

Post by shostack » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 8:58 PM UTC

maxxxxx wrote: post #63

shostack wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The compounding effects of this learning gap can't be overstated. One of my best friends who is very intelligent and successful came from a working class family that didn't emphasize sound personal finance education to say the least. He kept his savings in HS in his "sock in a drawer" account. I came from an upper middle class family that was the opposite. I was given a share or two of stocks for birthday gifts somet…

Did you want to say "The compounding effects of this learning gap can't be overstated?"

Doh, thank you for the catch and pardon my sleep-deprived typo.

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#75

Post by m_mueller » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 9:01 PM UTC

corecoder wrote: post #42

whenwillitstop wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's genetics, why is this such a mystery? The whole point of evolution is that you pass on good traits. When people do well, they pair with other people who are good genetically, and through the generations, their children do well. Why is this such a mystery?

Genetics do not work that way. The problem is that there is too little variation inside families and too much among families. Let's say that there are exactly two alleles: successful and not successful. So, successful people pairs with successful people and have successful offspring, as you propose. But then, there should be little variability among successful unrelated families, and that is just not so. Let's say th…

What about Epigenetics? We may all have the genes reauired for success, but they could get activated/deactivated in a manner that is inheritable.

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#76

Post by vacri » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 9:15 PM UTC

rileymat2 wrote: post #9

>fewer than 10 percent of people in the bottom fifth of the wealth distribution will make it into the top fifth. Things weren't much better for the middle class: Only about 20 percent of people in the middle fifth would rise into the top fifth over the course of their lives. Maybe I am a bit confused, but isn't 20% the exact right amount to move into the top fifth?

This is the problem with using a relative measure rather than an absolute. There can only ever be 20% of people in each relative quintile, but the percentage of the population above and below a given wealth line can change dramatically. If through some social magic, everyone was elevated above the poverty line, you'd still have a lowest quintile.

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#77

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 9:52 PM UTC

rileymat2 wrote: post #9

>fewer than 10 percent of people in the bottom fifth of the wealth distribution will make it into the top fifth. Things weren't much better for the middle class: Only about 20 percent of people in the middle fifth would rise into the top fifth over the course of their lives. Maybe I am a bit confused, but isn't 20% the exact right amount to move into the top fifth?

[deleted]

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#78

Post by loeg » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 10:13 PM UTC

idrios wrote: post #64

jimmywanger wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The study mentions nothing about poverty, just how educational levels seem to be preserved across generations.

It's about social/economic mobility and inequality. Poverty is very relevant here

I'm not sure it is. If 100% of the population is above the poverty line, how much does mobility matter?

Similarly, if 20% of the population is always below the poverty line, zero sum mobility means that for every person rising out of poverty, someone else sinks into it.

I think the metric we should focus on is reducing poverty.

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#79

Post by code_sardaukar » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 10:55 PM UTC

whenwillitstop wrote: post #24

jessriedel wrote: post #16

This phenomena (that children are not statistically independent of their grandparents even when controlling for parents) has already been found to be robustly true in Europe and some eastern countries. Gregory Clark wrote a book on it that was widely discussed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Son_Also_Rises_(book) The point is that families transmit something across multiple (> 5 generations) that's responsible for…

It's genetics, why is this such a mystery? The whole point of evolution is that you pass on good traits. When people do well, they pair with other people who are good genetically, and through the generations, their children do well. Why is this such a mystery?

The genetic explanation doesn't even require a correlation between the traits of people who pair up.

Suppose your grandparents genetic "quality" is statistically independent, so you have four quantities g1, g2, g3, g4. Your parents quality is approximately (g1 + g2) / 2 and (g3 + g4) / 2 and yours is (g1 + g2 + g3 + g4) / 4.

Now if we assume that income is a noisy measure of your "g" then it will follow that your income is correlated with your grandparents' even after accounting for your parents' income.

Re: New research suggests that social mobility in America may be more limited

#80

Post by jimmywanger » Sat, Oct 08, 2016, 11:00 PM UTC

loeg wrote: post #78

idrios wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's about social/economic mobility and inequality. Poverty is very relevant here

I'm not sure it is. If 100% of the population is above the poverty line, how much does mobility matter? Similarly, if 20% of the population is always below the poverty line, zero sum mobility means that for every person rising out of poverty, someone else sinks into it. I think the metric we should focus on is reducing poverty.

Even homeless people these days live better than Aztec kings a thousand years ago.

To be facile, if you want to reduce poverty to zero, merely reduce the poverty threshold to zero - as long as you're alive, you're not living in poverty.

Based on standards of living, nobody in the United States right now compared to the rest of the world throughout history is living in poverty.