Rising US Inequality: How We Got Here, Where We're Going

The example they gave is pretty terrible, but yes, a lot has already been determined by age 8 based on parental engagement in their child’s education.

That said, it’s simpler than the example they gave. Some well-established examples:

- Did you read to your child from a young age? Bonus points if you did it in an “interactive” way.

- Did you engage with your children in dialogue using more or less proper speech (i.e., not baby talk). Ideally this is in a wide range of topics and with different types of language (e.g., description, narration, etc.). Ideally with some modeling of good language as well.

- Did/do you review your child’s homework with them? Ideally, did/do you sit with them quite a bit and review study strategies, time management, etc.?

- Do you constantly have new sources of learning available to your kids, and do you encourage them to use them (ideally by engaging with said materials with them)?

- Ideal but optional, do you try to give your children a wide range of experiences. Simple examples are field trips, intro to various sports, intro to various arts, etc.? The article characterizes this with very high end examples, but they can be done cheaply.

The parents who do these things give their children a huge advantage in life.

Some folks on HN may be asking something along the lines of “um, isn’t that what pretty much all parents do?” The answer is largely no.

A common (perhaps close to median) example of poor parental engagement in the education environment:

- Child is never read to... ever. Parent may not be so good at reading.

- Child rarely spoken to, except via commands. Household mentality is that children are meant to be seen and not heard.

- Child largely left alone to keep themselves entertained on their own in a resource-poor environment.

- Child is never helped with homework. Never encouraged to learn for the sake of learning. School is often disparaged, and doing well in school may entail being abused by family members and/or peers.

- Child never leaves their neighborhood, much less their town, state, or country. Much of what is seen on TV that is supposed to be a caricature of modern life is largely or completely unrelatable to the child’s own environment.

- Things like going to anything cultural that is oriented towards children is non-existent. No children’s museum, no children’s theater or orchestra. Sports will be whatever (if anything) is played locally.

These folks have an uphill battle in terms of fighting inequality.

If you want to do something to counter the second example, support Headstart programs financially and politically. These programs have proven results, but somehow find themselves consistently compromised in terms of funding. These programs are low-hanging fruit for easy wins.

> some people with college degrees will have to be the ditch diggers so to speak. [...] It's just math

How about we pay the ditch diggers enough to live on? In fact, what the numbers are showing is that ditch diggers are poorer now than they were! Even if you refuse to share any of your tech industry gains, can't we at least keep ditch diggers at parity?

Sure it does. US consumer demand rises after WWII because of GI bill & repurposing of capital -> competition drives prices down -> Securities & Exchanges Act essentially mandates firms optimize for returns to capital as a fiduciary duty to shareholders -> producers look to countries where standards of living demand lower wages to maintain market positions -> US jobs decline but shareholder value grows -> wealth concentrates in the hands of those who have the opportunity to be a shareholders

It's like playing an MMORPG-style videogame where the developers keep raising the level cap. The higher the cap, the worse off people who are just starting are (and why in those games developers keep having to provide a "catch up mechanics", like a scroll to rush you to level cap, or making stuff easier to obtain. In the real world that's a lot harder to do though).

Probably made worse by the vastly higher amount of dual income household, so someone with just 1 income is proportionally worse off.

A single unskilled worker vs a couple of high skill workers, competing for supply & demand against each other...yeah, the former's not gonna have fun.

Living standards have gone down and life has become much more economically insecure for most working people as a result of the policies that economists recommend. This includes globalization, free trade, low taxes, destruction of labor unions, and the like. The authors support these policies. These changes have been accompanied by a political system that no longer represents the left behind. So of course the losers are not compensated; that is by design, not accident. I think we have the choice to either become more equal or face increasing political instability and viciousness - and the latter is more likely, witness Trump, Brexit, etc. I have lost respect for economic analysis because it has been so out of touch with political and social consequences as to be hugely destructive to the fabric of society. Much more of this and I hate to see what will become of our society.