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Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

nytimes.com

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Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#381

Post by cyborgx7 »

TheOtherHobbes wrote: post #319
cyborgx7 wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is what people are taught good journalism is. I agree, it's annoying and time consuming. It is disrespectful of my time as a reader.

You're not the only reader. Most humans remember personal narratives far more efficiently than they parse data tables. Humans who don't operate like this are very much an exception. So this is a communication technique - part of rhetoric, in fact. And communicating with median readers is what journalists are paid to do.

I'm not arguing for removing all personal stories from journalistic articles. But if every single Article I read has a headline that I am interested in, but then asks me to read a long personal story before it will actually explain to me what the headline means, it will discourage me from reading articles. In fact, it already has.

Journalist aren't just paid to communicate with median readers, but with all readers. If close to all articles have the same format some readers will be put off by that.

I'm not arguing for removing all personal stories. Just for more of a balance.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#382

Post by wastedhours »

fzeroracer wrote: post #79

I broke out of poverty. Why can't they do it too? It was a simple thing for me, a combination of studying hard, focusing on my future and the death of my father. You see, my parents were both fishermen. It's a grueling, painful job that can destroy your body as you age leaving you with back problems and forcing you to retire early. It also paid poorly and had a lot of risks. Which unfortunately for us, resulted in th…

Glad you got out of poverty, anecdata only gets us so far. Hard work counts, but so does the opportunity you mentioned, and access to being able to put in hard work.

The lack of social mobility is well documented, and it's a travesty that's affecting large parts of the developed world still (and shamefully, the UK pretty much leads on it):

https://www.minneapolisfed.org/institute/working-papers/17-2...

https://www.suttontrust.com/newsarchive/disturbing-finding-l...

https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/...

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2018/jun/15/social-mobil...

Unfortunately I'm not as well versed in reliable US sources, but there are references through here that the US doesn't exactly beat us hands down on social mobility either.

I do implore everyone to read more on this topic, there's a lot on HN about "meritocracy" and "well, just work harder", but that's just simply not the world we live in. It's a shit-show out there, and people's ability to break through the "class-ceiling" is being stunted, not improved.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#383

Post by SolaceQuantum »

lyzan wrote: post #376
_khau wrote: post #340

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Learning costs money, especially as an adult. You still need to cover your basic expenses, homeless or not.

While not totally free (access costs) a vast majority of the knowlage I've learned and use for my job has been from free resources online. Realistically, I've probably spent under $500 in 10 years on educational materials (excluding buying my first non-work-sponsored laptop) and am now "Senior" level in my field. Plus almost all that was in more recent years as I'm trying learn more theoretical / academic application…

How much of that could you do pulling multiple low-wage jobs and raising child(ren)? If you yourself had a serious chronic illness? If you yourself was raised in poverty so you had to go to schools with high failure rates and no education in which to acquire your own education?

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#384

Post by hhjinks »

cm2012 wrote: post #378
lr4444lr wrote: post #365

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The diabetic Vanessa could have chosen not to have her first baby at 16.

You have no idea the kind of mental state, upbringing and understanding of the world Vanessa had at 16. One of the big reasons teen girls get pregnant is a desperate hope to fill the psychological void in their hearts created by neglectful parents.

That does not absolve her of her irresponsibility. 99% of 16-year-olds realize having a kid is a bad idea. She made her bed, and now she sleeps in it. I can empathize with her situation, but I can not empathize with anyone saying she is not herself at least partly responsible.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#385

Post by empath75 »

anoncoward111 wrote: post #299
drdaeman wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This means the numbers are meaningless and don't provide a good representation. Needs better data. Call me inhumane, but a single story doesn't mean anything . It's just some random point in the set. Drawing any conclusions from such a single point is dangerous (the larger the set, the more), as we humans just love to extrapolate single points and even tend have quite strong emotional defenses about their importance.…

I'll call you inhumane then. Despite record employment levels and rising average net worth in the USA, millions of people are still starving and struggling with drug addictions and so on. Averages and generalizations only tell a portion of the story. Anecdotes can shed light on "noise".

There are not millions of people starving in the us are you mad.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#386

Post by SolaceQuantum »

sheepmullet wrote: post #357
coldtea wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know people who profess to be victims, too. I'll tick off the choices they made that got them where they are. Of course, they get angry with me. Nobody wants to hear the truth. Who told you poor people are capable of as good choices as richer people? When you live life in easy mode is easy to make the right choices. It's also easy to see some people who managed to play in hard mode and win, and extrapolate to eve…

> nor it makes it any more statistically possible for the masses to win the hard mode gameplay they were dealt. You don’t have to go back many generations to see that compared to today almost everyone played on hard mode.

How does that apply to today’s people, who are dealing with today’s problems and today’s struggles? Is it okay that a child in America is malnourished today because malnourishment existed?

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#387

Post by apatters »

wastedhours wrote: post #382
fzeroracer wrote: post #79

I broke out of poverty. Why can't they do it too? It was a simple thing for me, a combination of studying hard, focusing on my future and the death of my father. You see, my parents were both fishermen. It's a grueling, painful job that can destroy your body as you age leaving you with back problems and forcing you to retire early. It also paid poorly and had a lot of risks. Which unfortunately for us, resulted in th…

Glad you got out of poverty, anecdata only gets us so far. Hard work counts, but so does the opportunity you mentioned, and access to being able to put in hard work. The lack of social mobility is well documented, and it's a travesty that's affecting large parts of the developed world still (and shamefully, the UK pretty much leads on it): https://www.minneapolisfed.org/institute/working-papers/17-2... https://www.su…

There's a somewhat confusing summary of the degree of mobility in the US on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility#United_State...

I think a roughly accurate statement is that over half of Americans end up within one income quintile of their parents.

That doesn't seem like much mobility to me and many European countries apparently rank better. The American Dream might be mostly marketing at this point.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#388

Post by leaveyou »

mch82 wrote: post #373
leaveyou wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What I find amazing is that so few people here notice the consequences of working hard in a field that is not worth it anymore. His entire family should have slowly "pivoted" away from fishing long long time ago (the first/second year with a low ROI for the risk). The same applies to IT or any other sector. When the prospective ROI turns negative (subtract the total costs of your job(time/health/opportunity) from the…

Except wouldn’t human society collapse if everyone “pivoted away” because it turns out we like eating fish, etc.? Is it possible wages often don’t reflect the value of the work people do?

>>Except wouldn’t human society collapse if everyone “pivoted away”

No. The human society would not collapse if there were fewer fishermen. The fact that the fishermen are so badly paid even if they work so hard, to me is a clear indication that the human society does not value their effort and it would be probably better if they would put their efforts into something else.

>>Is it possible wages often don’t reflect the value of the work people do?

I agree, there is often little correlation between the wage and the value of the work but the rational workers should optimize for the wage not for the value of the work if they don't want to be poor.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#389

Post by doitLP »

blub wrote: post #102
burfog wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We have social mobility, not a social lottery. Moving all the way from the bottom to the top might take a couple generations, which will obviously involve needing to win at a fierce competition. That looks an awful lot like a meritocracy.

That sounds like a crap deal honestly. Come to the US, you'll probably still die poor, but at least maybe your grandchildren will do well. * * does not apply if you or your children get shot by the police for being the wrong shade of brown, maimed by unsafe working conditions associated with low-skilled labour, get sacked because you ask for a raise, etc.

Seriously? I'm guessing you don't have children. Working to improve the life of your kids and grandkids is a real driver, and is the subject of the classic immigrant story for millions of people the world over.

Police kill ~1000 people per year in the US and roughly half are white. While there is an inarguabale disparity there, that means your chances of getting shot by police are extremely, vanishingly rare. And the numbers killed each year is in steep decline. Let's abandon the fear mongering rhetoric of getting shot by police is any real threat. It makes good headlines but it's just not likely to happen to 99.9999% of people no matter their "shade of brown" as you say.

There are more worker protections, more systemic empowerment of people in all classes, all genders, all faiths, all backgrounds than ever in history. There's a lot of work to be done and the system is by no means equal. Wealth disparity is real. But the fact is there's more learning resources available for free with which to bootstrap yourself than ever. As someone descended from hard working immigrants who valued education, and who is part of an incredibly racially diverse family, I don't think it's a crap deal at all.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#390

Post by SolaceQuantum »

hhjinks wrote: post #384
cm2012 wrote: post #378

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have no idea the kind of mental state, upbringing and understanding of the world Vanessa had at 16. One of the big reasons teen girls get pregnant is a desperate hope to fill the psychological void in their hearts created by neglectful parents.

That does not absolve her of her irresponsibility. 99% of 16-year-olds realize having a kid is a bad idea. She made her bed, and now she sleeps in it. I can empathize with her situation, but I can not empathize with anyone saying she is not herself at least partly responsible.

Why are we making motherhood something that cuts into someone’s career at all? Furthermore why are we making motherhood something that should punish the mother? Is it okay that a mother go without resources because she mothered too young? Is it fair/meritocratic to her child?
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