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Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

washingtonpost.com

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Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#211

Post by adrianratnapala »

unclebucknasty wrote: post #126
mac01021 wrote: post #26

This doesn't seem particularly remarkable to me. > Specifically, rich high school dropouts remain in the top about as much as poor college grads stay stuck in the bottom — 14 versus 16 percent, respectively. They're saying social mobility (up or down) is attainable for 85% of each group. And graduating college is not really the same as making all the right choices...

> graduating college is not really the same as making all the right choices... Perhaps, but completing college is generally considered to be a better choice than is dropping out of high school. And it is generally associated with better decision-making and better outcomes. Whether it should be or whether it's changing may be subject to debate, but we have generally rewarded that choice in the past, all things being e…

But one of the big ways in which English-speaking countries are dropping the ball on equality is by making everything depend on university degrees.

We lose the opportunity for people to rise by becoming good plumbers (and then becoming owners of growing plumbing related buisinesses). Instead we try to fake equality by getting more and more students into soft degrees where the graduates still end up working at McDonalds.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#212

Post by ap22213 »

bshlgrs wrote: post #198

This article is terrible. It makes a shitty and misleading graph, and generates a variety of nonsensical judgements from it. The graph used makes it really hard to see what the actual distributions of overall income are. If you make, say, a bar graph of the income distributions, you'll see that poor college grads do much better than rich high school dropouts. I made such a graph here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsh…

Even with your analysis, the numbers look pretty bad. I get it if you're being critical of the journalism. But, if you're trying to suggest that rich and poor have equal (or even relatively equal) opportunity, you'll have to present different evidence.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#213

Post by ap22213 »

malandrew wrote: post #165
nostromo wrote: post #37

This is presented as if this opinion journalist found a causative relationship when he's done no such thing. He's just looking at correlations and then shoehorning in his favorite explanations (glass floors, glass ceilings, diploma mills). Take a look at his previous articles and maybe you'll identify a trend: https://www.washingtonpost.com/people/matt-obrien/

This is a much better analysis on social mobility: https://randomcriticalanalysis.wordpress.com/2016/05/09/my-r...

I skimmed it, but I didn't see much of a point except that he seems to be implying that poor people are more likely to be less intelligent (or rich people are more likely to be more intelligent).

So, let's say his analysis is correct. What then? Does it mean that we should, as a society, test for intelligence early in life and subsidize incomes appropriately? Or, just let the poor suffer if they don't have the correct genes?

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#214

Post by mirimir »

patmcguire wrote: post #206
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And while this was a sample of one it really opened my eyes to sense of entitlement that comes with growing up in a wealthy vs poor enviroment. In the UK, the primary selling points of the Public School system (i.e. private schools priced far out of the reach of most of the population) are three things - social confidence, entitlement and a sense of superiority, and networking. Conversely, the primary products of th…

There's also a lot of complicated signaling that says I Am Elite Like You. Hard to pick up on or transmit out if you're not in on it, and I don't think people in it are doing it consciously.

In the UK, accent is a major component.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#215

Post by flukus »

patmcguire wrote: post #206
TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>And while this was a sample of one it really opened my eyes to sense of entitlement that comes with growing up in a wealthy vs poor enviroment. In the UK, the primary selling points of the Public School system (i.e. private schools priced far out of the reach of most of the population) are three things - social confidence, entitlement and a sense of superiority, and networking. Conversely, the primary products of th…

There's also a lot of complicated signaling that says I Am Elite Like You. Hard to pick up on or transmit out if you're not in on it, and I don't think people in it are doing it consciously.

This goes both ways too. There is a lot you can say in a bar that could make you an immediate outcast.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#216

Post by lsen001 »

bshlgrs wrote: post #198

This article is terrible. It makes a shitty and misleading graph, and generates a variety of nonsensical judgements from it. The graph used makes it really hard to see what the actual distributions of overall income are. If you make, say, a bar graph of the income distributions, you'll see that poor college grads do much better than rich high school dropouts. I made such a graph here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsh…

Agreed - this article is quite disingenuous.

From the graphs provided, comparing them makes no sense. Each should be taken own its own; i.e. At the start of college, 100% of the poor kids where in the lowest income percentile. At age 40, only 16% remain. Whereas, for the high school dropouts, only 14% remained in their income percentile (the highest) at age 40.

I think that describes a meritocracy very well. The opportunity is there - you have to work at it.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#217

Post by tnecniv »

WesternStar wrote: post #170
zeveb wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd go so far as to argue that it's harder to get by as a white Appalachian than as a black urbanite. Plenty of people & programmes care about the latter; few about the former.

No you misunderstand people talk about and pretend to care about the latter. Unless you actually know what those experiences are like. It is very unlikely that a white man is going to go to the top graduate school in the country and discover that they don't give white people Phds. Black people can't say the same.

> It is very unlikely that a white man is going to go to the top graduate school in the country and discover that they don't give white people Phds. Black people can't say the same.

Got a link? I'm not questioning you, I'm curious to know more.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#218

Post by WalterBright »

I wouldn't discount the probability that some people know how to handle money and how to make money, and they transmit this knowledge to their kids. I attended public schools K-12 and do not recall a single lesson on handling money or making money.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#219

Post by randomdata »

lordCarbonFiber wrote: post #16

I feel like the provided chart doesn't quite match up well with the presented narrative. Granted it's hard to evaluate since they neglect to define what the bar for rich and poor is, however, assuming by rich and poor they mean born in the 1st and 5th quartiles by income, the chart would imply over 80% of 1st quartile dropouts fall at least one income quartile and corresponding graduating college (note there's no str…

> the chart would imply over 80% of 1st quartile dropouts fall at least one income quartile

While I agree that stronger definitions are necessary, that implies that all high school dropouts from rich families were personally making 1st quintile incomes at some point before the age of 40. That seems highly unlikely to me. Even children of rich families are usually expected to work and find a way to make their own income (even if that comes through family connections), not have their parents income flow to them unimpeded and reclaimed as their own income. There is no reason to believe that these children of rich families were ever making as much as their parents at any point in time, save the 14% that did accomplish it.

As such, for all intents and purposes, the chart shows what two groups who both effectively started with zero income were able to achieve by the age of 40. The interesting thing is that there isn't much variance. Yes, the poor college graduates fared slightly better – but only slightly. That is in stark contrast to the popular narrative that high school dropouts are doomed to failure, forever stuck working for minimum wage, if they are lucky and that getting a degree will magically save you from being poor.

Re: Poor kids who do things right don't do better than rich kids who do things wrong

#220

Post by cbhl »

bshlgrs wrote: post #200
cbhl wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The arrow basically says that 14% and 16% are similar. "As a rich high school dropout, you have a 14% chance of being in the top 20%." "As a poor college grad, you have a 16% chance of being in the bottom 20%." If you're in that ~15% of each group, you get the premise that the "poor" college grads didn't do better than the corresponding "rich" dropouts.

But that makes no sense--if you want high social mobility (and you think college grads should be paid more), you want both those numbers to be lower. The article treats it as a problem that they're similar.

I agree. I actually think this whole article is just a puff piece; the premise makes no sense.
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