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Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life

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Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life

#631

Post by driverdan »

esens wrote: post #485
driverdan wrote: post #334

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You contradicted yourself. Many companies like McDonald's and Walmart promote from within. You can be successful at those companies by working hard and getting promotions.

Theoretically possible yes. But the pyramid is very very bottom heavy at McDonalds and Walmart where 90% of all employees make close to minimum wage. It would be better to start in corporate at Walmart and work your way up there, rather than to start as a restocker or cashier or warehouse worker -- all of which are at risk of being further automated.

> It would be better to start in corporate at Walmart

Not everyone has the opportunity to do that.

Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life

#632

Post by pope_meat »

j_walter wrote: post #623
pope_meat wrote: post #594

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, it's just a statistical reality that kids in poor areas don't want to learn, and that's why the results show poorer people doing worse in education that rich people? Interesting hill to die on, but you do you.

Yes it is. Kids in poor areas don't see education as they way out of being poor...how could they. They see drugs and gangs as a way to do that though. I went to a shitty school and did well and went to college (thanks to my parents pushing me to do so)...so many people couldn't fathom why I was doing that and why I wasn't going to just go get a job right away. Many of those people are still living in that same area a…

I was going to debate you further, but then I realized I don't care about poor people either, just want to appear like I do.

Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life

#633

Post by cartoonworld »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #448
cartoonworld wrote: post #352

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should also notice that in the US, garbage collectors are routinely in the top 10 most dangerous jobs. It is extremely hazardous. I imagine the overall health impact from this occupation is large as well, considering the weird stuff that ends up in the bin, biological factors, as well as exposure to transportation related pollutants (Carbon Monoxide, NOX, brake dust, all quite poisonous) Consider these other facto…

Damn straight. Every now and then, one of them gets crushed by their own truck. I suspect that the overall health deterioration is awful.

Its especially bonkers considering this exists: youtube.com/watch?v=DSSfRUxCsG0

Search terms: one arm bandit garbage truck

Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life

#634

Post by fatbird »

j_walter wrote: post #486
ewmiller wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's very true. Widespread, high quality public education is a must.

It's not necessarily that the educators aren't high quality, but that the majority of students are there as a babysitting service and take up more time being disciplined than actually getting taught. We always say inner city schools have worse education...but I suspect it's more that the kids that attend those schools are disruptors and the system won't allow them to be disciplined in the way they should be (not that…

Below, you say

but at the school level what can they do?

Lots, actually, but it's very resource constrained, so once again, the relationship between money-poor schools and bad students plays out.

There are a variety of diversion programs that have been tried and shown great success with problem kids, but that requires staffing so that disruptors get more teacher attention than they otherwise would in a class of 35. Having competent, active counselling services in schools does a lot, too.

With that said, it's not my wife's experience (as an inner city high school teacher) that disruptors are the problem. They're a problem, but there are lots of ways to handle them, individually or in groups.

The way kids get shafted in poor schools is high teacher:student ratios that reduce or eliminate any individual attention a kid might receive, coupled with poor facilities and supplies. You rightly identify parental involvement as a key factor in school success, but the flip side is that kids lacking parental involvement are denied any individual attention in schools that are simply overcrowded and understaffed. And the kind of attention I'm talking about isn't substitute parenting, it's just following up with kids on assignments and attendance.

Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life

#635

Post by caconym_ »

geggam wrote: post #629
caconym_ wrote: post #628

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the context of this thread, and in particular the top level comment you initially replied to, who do you imagine is suggesting we teach people that?

Well, lets look at society. We have the rich who use the govt to oppress the people and preserve their wealth. We have the poor who think the govt will help them We have a large group of people who just want to work to survive What rules would you put in place and how would you go about doing that to ensure the rich / powerful didnt corrupt the system ? The US was designed with a constitution defining the rules a gov…

> So you think its better to simply feed these folks and ensure they are ok will somehow motivate them to work ?

Care to show me where I said any such thing, or even implied it?

> Perhaps instead of letting the govt get away with violating the rules it was bound by we start enforcing the rules ?

To what end? I feel like you’re just agreeing with the sentiment of the top level comment, that we need to do a better job ensuring that social mobility is more than an illusion.

I also feel like you’re ascribing some rabid anti-capitalist sentiment to me and/or the top level commenter when, in fact (again), I don’t think either of us expressed any such sentiment, even implicitly. I happen to agree (?) with you that capitalism in concert with strong social programs to ensure the independence and mobility of labor (in economics I believe we may call that “liquidity”, which is said to increase allocative efficiency) is the right way to go.

Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life

#636

Post by imtringued »

pope_meat wrote: post #594
j_walter wrote: post #489

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If parents value education they don't need to pay for tutors or summer school. I grew up in district with shitty schools, but I saw some kids succeed only because they learned stuff on their own. Those schools aren't necessarily shittier...they are filled with kids that don't want to learn (and their parents increasingly blame the teachers for their failure).

So, it's just a statistical reality that kids in poor areas don't want to learn, and that's why the results show poorer people doing worse in education that rich people? Interesting hill to die on, but you do you.

I would have phrased it like this:

Middle class kids (and above) get good education handed to them on a silver platter while poor kids will have to fight tooth and nail to scrape their own education together.

It's not impossible but if you were that determined you could learn even better in a good school so the relative downside for poverty still persists. What you are setting yourself up for is not becoming poor. That's good but it is clearly not fair.

Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life

#637

Post by imtringued »

pope_meat wrote: post #632
j_walter wrote: post #623

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes it is. Kids in poor areas don't see education as they way out of being poor...how could they. They see drugs and gangs as a way to do that though. I went to a shitty school and did well and went to college (thanks to my parents pushing me to do so)...so many people couldn't fathom why I was doing that and why I wasn't going to just go get a job right away. Many of those people are still living in that same area a…

I was going to debate you further, but then I realized I don't care about poor people either, just want to appear like I do.

I don't care about poor people either. All I care about is a system that sets everyone up for success. I know it's possible and I know it would help poor people, but we aren't there yet.

Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life

#638

Post by s1artibartfast »

gjulianm wrote: post #582
s1artibartfast wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Starting conditions (where one was born, levels of wealth and opportunity there, one's parents' education and jobs) are shockingly predictive about an individual's future. Starting conditions are a factor , but a terrible predictor. If you look at income by the quintile you are born into, it is closer to random than 1:1 predictive. It is most true for the poor, where those born into the bottom 20% have about 45% cha…

> Starting conditions are a factor, but a terrible predictor. If you look at income by the quintile you are born into, it is closer to random than 1:1 predictive. Closer to random would mean a 20% chance of ending on any quintile from any quintile. From your report (which has data from 1991, quite few things changed since then), the probability of being at the top 20% is 3% if you are in the poorest quintile, 40% if…

Random would mean 20% of ending in the same quintile, perfect predictor would mean 100%, so 40% is much closer to random.

>you can rephrase the statistic in another way, such as saying that 13% of the people at the lowest quintile should be in the highest income bracket, but they're not there because they started poor.

You say "should" but it seems like this is only true if you expect (and want) completely random results.

Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life

#639

Post by imtringued »

j_walter wrote: post #625
only_as_i_fall wrote: post #619

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my city it's hard to separate the multitude of interrelated issues to say it's any one thing, but something I didn't realize until I moved here is that magnet schools pull out virtually all the competent and interested kids by the time they reach highschool. Given that, it's less surprising to me that the bottom tier public schools in these areas wind up so much shittier than the average public school.

Can you really blame them? Why wouldn't you want to pull the good kids out so they can succeed? Seems like having tryouts for basketball...you take the best of the best to make the team strong.

What's the underlying factor that makes it possible to only poach the good students?

I'm thinking either it is externally visible or the factor is "solvable" for every student, meaning a school with bad students will receive more policies/measures to boost their performance as everyone is suffering from the same underlying problems. Of course this assumes that poorly performing schools get support at all.

Re: Survey shows people no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life

#640

Post by imtringued »

clipradiowallet wrote: post #550
adkadskhj wrote: post #499

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I dunno.. these are loose definitions but i make enough that i'm confident i can pay off my mortgage, make meaningful contributions to my retirement and not be afraid of money (outside of job loss, at least) . I also significantly budget for things like home repairs, car repairs, medical expenses, etc. I could lose my job tomorrow and be safe for 6 months, 12 if i needed to. I have no financial concerns outside of jo…

That's exactly how I would describe my own situation. From the outside looking in, people with less economic means think that my situation is "perfect", and that it equates to no worries(it does not). Job loss is the only big worry, and even in that situation it wouldn't be difficult to find a similar job with similar pay. I know that is a comfort that not everyone(or most people) has. Knowing that this seems to be "…

I agree. If what I have is "good", then others must have it worse.
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