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Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

economist.com

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Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#131

Post by _kbh_ »

systemvoltage wrote: post #66
lmm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> America is still the best country in the world to start a business and take risks. Not convinced. Serious illness can happen to anyone at any time, especially under the stress of running a business, and America has one of the weakest safety nets for a developed country. > America still has more freedoms (speech especially) than most of the world. The First Amendment is a great thing, but it can't maintain a culture…

> Not convinced. Serious illness can happen to anyone at any time, especially under the stress of running a business, and America has one of the weakest safety nets for a developed country. US is at the top of the rung amongst OECD health index. The middle class is not too badly positioned. For the poor, there is Medicare: https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/health/ > The First Amendment is a great thing, but…

I feel like it’s hard to describe America as being at the “top rung” of health care with the stats linked. Those being

28/40 life expectancy 3/40 reported health 18/40 social inequality

I can’t help but feel that that “reported health” is skewed with such a low life expectancy.

For clarity within these rankings the lower the number the better.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#132

Post by tshaddox »

csallen wrote: post #100
forgotmyoldname wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean... that doesn't detract from the problem at all. That just says there's a massive wealth divide and that moving up to the mere top 20% (the group 1 out of 5 people belong to) should be considered a ridiculous proposition unless you're born into it. Why should 1 out of 5 people belong to a group so wealthy that saying mobility is difficult should be considered problematic?

> Why should 1 out of 5 people belong to a group so wealthy that saying mobility is difficult should be considered problematic? Why is it a bad thing that so many people are so wealthy? The more people who belong to the so-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve group, the better.

> The more people who belong to the so-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve group, the better.

Aren’t you just literally saying that social mobility is bad?

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#133

Post by lmm »

systemvoltage wrote: post #66
lmm wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> America is still the best country in the world to start a business and take risks. Not convinced. Serious illness can happen to anyone at any time, especially under the stress of running a business, and America has one of the weakest safety nets for a developed country. > America still has more freedoms (speech especially) than most of the world. The First Amendment is a great thing, but it can't maintain a culture…

> Not convinced. Serious illness can happen to anyone at any time, especially under the stress of running a business, and America has one of the weakest safety nets for a developed country. US is at the top of the rung amongst OECD health index. The middle class is not too badly positioned. For the poor, there is Medicare: https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/health/ > The First Amendment is a great thing, but…

> US is at the top of the rung amongst OECD health index. The middle class is not too badly positioned. For the poor, there is Medicare: https://www.oecdbetterlifeindex.org/topics/health/

The breakdown on your link shows the US is scoring well because of high self-reported health, which seems very likely to be due to cultural factures. The objective part, life expectancy, is below the OECD average, and in line with the Czech Republic or Turkey.

> US is on par with UK and most OECD nations with regards to civil rights and liberties:

Cato is an American institution with its own biases. Just having a glance through their measurements, they consider female genital mutilation to be anti-freedom but male genital mutilation to be fine, and though this is supposedly a report on "negative rights" it considers countries that require people to call other people particular ways to be more free than those who aren't. They consider governmental ownership of industry to inherently reduce economic freedom, when often the opposite is true because of stronger fairness regulations on governments (e.g. privatized utility companies can deny service to individual more easily than governmental ones). And to return to my original point, despite talking about the importance of economic freedom and quoting Trotsky, their report doesn't even examine cases where people are excluded from employment through mechanisms other than law.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#134

Post by WalterBright »

twobitshifter wrote: post #95

I think the first step is to admit we have a problem. People don’t like the United States being labeled as anything less than exceptional. If you look at the Amazon workers, Uber drivers, door dashers, etc in this country it’s amazing how hard people can work and not get ahead. 2nd and 3rd jobs can be necessary to just make ends meet. The story that hard work is all it takes in America does need to be questioned.

> it’s amazing how hard people can work and not get ahead

It's not how hard one works, it's how smart one works.

The second aspect is what does one do with the income one has, which has a crucial impact on the person's future.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#135

Post by 999900000999 »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #96
999900000999 wrote: post #57

Social mobility is a very tricky thing. I think every person can succeed as long as they have the courage to cut off people who are counterproductive to that. For example, when I look at my own parents, they're simply self-destructive people who never took responsibility for any of their actions. Whenever I've needed to depend on anyone in my family. I've ultimately been let down, but when it comes to my own efforts.…

Well said. Drama is a time and attention suck - away from not only productivity, but time spent where you could be doing things that make you actually happy, which in turn, generally, makes you a more productive person with a desire to 'do things' rather than sit and fucking mope. Gossip, drama, lifestyle comparison, it's a recipe for failure (which is what social media supposedly encourages). I'm not any kind of ben…

Lucky you for having a decent medical system, I consider myself to be exceptionally privileged. Which I can pay, at least to me a relatively small amount of money to treat. But if I was living paycheck to paycheck, I might not be able to afford my medication, and I can literally die due to not being able to afford my medication.

Medical expenses are the single worse thing about American life, so many of us end up skipping medicines that we need. And these medicines are relatively inexpensive, maybe three or $400 a month. But when you can't afford it you can't afford it, and then say you have a heart attack and you end up in the hospital. Then you're in debt for 30 or $40,000, and you'll never escape.

I'm looking to potentially immigrate to Europe in the near future, I'm very tired of this American Life of struggle.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#136

Post by lnxg33k1 »

systemvoltage wrote: post #22
echelon wrote: post #8

America is being attacked by pervasive narratives like this. News rags the whole world over are shitting on us, meanwhile authoritarian regimes are rising to power. It's a narrative dismantling, and we're being played like fools. America is still the best country in the world to start a business and take risks. America still has more freedoms (speech especially) than most of the world. (Side note: The left wants to p…

I'd just like to point out one thing I've noticed quite a bit and would love Europeans to chime in - that is - European exceptionalism. We, Americans, were known for American exceptionalism but that has eroded to a point where I haven't heard a single good thing about America in the last decade or so. We're shameful and contemptful of our nation. Slightest positive thing is considered nationalistic and right-wing, so…

To be honest, as a european, I don't really understand all this fuss about exceptionalism, being the biggest economy in the world, having the highest amount of billionaires in the world, etc.

I know that it is all a big deal in US and the Americans I speak with every now and then all proudly always talk that greatness, but I would just care about being able to live a life with dignity with socialised services, government pension, sick days, etc, that do not depend on a specific company benefit but belong to the human being as a human being

So I still believe US has greatness, I can see Jeff Bezos created an empire, but then courier have no rights and people dies in a warehouse peeing in a bottle, I see the greatness of Elon Musk but then he just behaves like a child on twitter with non-sense leeching taxpayers

I've gone a bit off topic, but my point is, I am an employee with a government pension, 8% holiday allowance, sick days contribution that are paid monthly from my salary to the department of welfare with pension plan, as many in Europe, and my boss isn't worth thousand times than the average employee and I am not sure if he's classified in the wealthiest person of the world, I don't mind, we're not exceptional, but do our job and have life, I guess European exceptionalism is the lack of it?

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#137

Post by rpmisms »

jollybean wrote: post #127
rpmisms wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would argue that the people in those ecosystems have much of the opportunity afforded to me, they just don't know about how possible it really is. I personally work at a Floridian company, and have a bunch of coworkers who come from the exact backgrounds you talk about. It's totally possible, it just has to be a known opportunity, not a pie-in-the-sky dream.

Yes, it's definitely possible. But your personal experience more or less indicates that it can be done, not that it commonly is. "it just has to be a known opportunity" - and this is the rub. I think that this is far, far more than simply 'informing them they can go to college'. It's an entire life outlook, set of conscientious behaviours, that's almost impossible to contemplate if you're completely outside of positi…

Again, I did not go to college. That's not a necessary step for working in tech.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#138

Post by endisneigh »

WalterBright wrote: post #123
forgotmyoldname wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean... that doesn't detract from the problem at all. That just says there's a massive wealth divide and that moving up to the mere top 20% (the group 1 out of 5 people belong to) should be considered a ridiculous proposition unless you're born into it. Why should 1 out of 5 people belong to a group so wealthy that saying mobility is difficult should be considered problematic?

> Why should 1 out of 5 people belong to a group so wealthy that saying mobility is difficult should be considered problematic? Why should some people be able to run much faster than I can? It's not fair there are many men handsomer than myself. They should be required to wear a mask.

imagine equating wealth to attraction, lol. I understand your point, but what an inane example.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#139

Post by enraged_camel »

csallen wrote: post #100
forgotmyoldname wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean... that doesn't detract from the problem at all. That just says there's a massive wealth divide and that moving up to the mere top 20% (the group 1 out of 5 people belong to) should be considered a ridiculous proposition unless you're born into it. Why should 1 out of 5 people belong to a group so wealthy that saying mobility is difficult should be considered problematic?

> Why should 1 out of 5 people belong to a group so wealthy that saying mobility is difficult should be considered problematic? Why is it a bad thing that so many people are so wealthy? The more people who belong to the so-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve group, the better.

Because wealth is used to capture political power, which in turn is used to help the wealthy hoard even more wealth and retain that wealth.

Furthermore, this often is done at the expense of everyone else. Wealth may not be zero-sum, but that is only true in the abstract sense; I wouldn't be surprised if we found out that most people who are at the topmost quintile acquired their wealth by sucking value out of the system (e.g. rent-seekers, parasitic middlemen, etc.), rather than via value generation.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#140

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

forgotmyoldname wrote: post #91
refurb wrote: post #58

Again, it's highly problematic defining mobility as "moving from bottom quintile to top quintile". - Moving from bottom quintile to 2nd highest is significant mobility and completely ignored in this analysis. - The analysis ignores the fact that the highest quintile in the US is higher in absolute terms than other countries. So moving from bottom to 4th may give more income than bottom to 5th in other countries. - Th…

I mean... that doesn't detract from the problem at all. That just says there's a massive wealth divide and that moving up to the mere top 20% (the group 1 out of 5 people belong to) should be considered a ridiculous proposition unless you're born into it. Why should 1 out of 5 people belong to a group so wealthy that saying mobility is difficult should be considered problematic?

56% of Americans spend at least one year in the top 10%, and 73% spend one year in the top 20% [1].

[1] https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/evidence-shows-significant-in...

American mobility isn't bad because people can't make it to the top - you can, more so than almost anywhere in the world.

It's bad because a significant portion of people at the bottom stay stuck at the bottom their whole life. Compared to countries in Europe, this is a lot worse.

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