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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

#151

Post by ryandrake »

AussieWog93 wrote: post #63
rfrey wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not your main point, but in the spirit of Americans overestimating social mobility, you may be overestimating "family values" among the working class. According to the 2015 US census, the share of people who have been divorced at least once is 46% (poor), 41% (working class) and 30% (middle and upper class). Similarly, people who report they are "very happy" in marriage are 54% (poor), 56% (working class) and…

I think his definition of working class is perhaps different to the definition in your study. It's one of those terms that are loosely defined (at least in certain societies) and mean very different things to different people. Is an electrician earning US$80k/year middle class because he's well compensated for his work, or working class because he's doing manual labour?

The phrase "Family Values" is pretty vague, too. I'm sure if you asked almost everyone who is in a family whether they felt they had family values they'd say yes. I'm not really sure what someone means when they say an area has "family values". I don't think it means lack of divorce.

In the 90s, I remember "family values" having been used by politicians as a polite euphemism for the very narrow "straight, Christian, atomic" view of what a family should be.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#152

Post by TuringNYC »

thepasswordis wrote: post #119

Regardless of how much money I make, none of my friends went to Stanford, I grew up in a boring town in a boring part of the world, and I made my money in an “unglamorous” industry. I could make $10B. I still wouldn’t reach the top level of class. Maybe my kids kids will. Here’s an attempt to say something positive about this: you guys should try to seek out those unglamorous industries, usually in unglamorous parts…

>> I could make $10B. I still wouldn’t reach the top level of class. Maybe my kids kids will.

Is there really anyone wrong with this? If you and your family are happy, and your needs are met, and clearly you have options -- does anyone else's definition of class really matter?

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#153

Post by [deleted] »

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.

[deleted]

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#154

Post by tdfx »

jollybean wrote: post #84
rpmisms wrote: post #23

Social mobility is very different than economic mobility. It's not hugely difficult to earn six figures in the US if you're committed, work hard, and pick a good field. Heck, I did it without any college. Social mobility is a different story. I was raised in a rural area, which is essentially a social class of its own. Since becoming an adult, I've found myself gravitating towards working-class people. I like the blu…

"t's not hugely difficult to earn six figures in the US if you're committed, work hard, and pick a good field." I think that's true for White and Asian folks. But the thing about America is that it has two, giant categories of people in a 'different lane' - notably those in poor Black urban neighbourhoods, and new Latino migrants particularly in Texas/Cali where they are highly segregated from the rest of society. 'T…

> I think that's true for White and Asian folks.

Race-based generalizations almost always end up leading you in the wrong direction. There's substantially more white people living below the poverty line compared to any other group [1] and those poor white communities are trapped by the same lack of awareness of opportunities as any of the minority groups you mentioned. Whites and Asians are over-represented in the affluent groups, which leads many people to look at things through a racial lens, but on a per capita basis, whites dominate the impoverished population.

[1] https://talkpoverty.org/basics/

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#155

Post by csallen »

tshaddox wrote: post #132
csallen wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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?

No, I'm saying that there's always going to be some level of wealth that's difficult to achieve. We can all pull a number out of thin air that's just super high, that's tough to imagine people in the bottom 20% commonly getting to in their lifetime.

For argument's sake, let's say that number is a net worth of $500K. (Because that just so happens to be the minimum net worth to be in the top 20% of Americans[0].)

What would you prefer: a world where more or fewer people were able to amass that much wealth? To me, the obvious answer is more.

It does nobody any good for fewer people to be wealthy. Sure, you could look at the numbers and conclude that there's more class mobility, but that's just because more people are poorer, not because more people are making it to $500K.

[0] https://www.businessinsider.com/personal-finance/net-worth-t...

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#156

Post by chongli »

inetknght wrote: post #126
csallen wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

12% of Americans struggle from food insecurity. By definition, 20% of Americans are in the top quintile. I'm with you, I want that first number to be as close to 0% as possible. But it's mathematically untrue that there are dozens of Americans starving for every American in the top 20%. In fact, there are barely half as many.

I count myself to be lucky in the top 20% of earners in America and have friends who also fit in the range. I've met a lot of people who struggle to put food on the table whose income is in the middle 50%. A lot of them have the same complaint: they don't qualify for help because they make too much . But they also struggle to pay their bills because they don't make enough. I don't know where you think 12% of American…

I'm not saying any of the people you've described fall into this category, but: there are plenty of people who struggle to pay the bills but not through lack of income. They struggle to pay the bills while always having the latest iPhone, designer clothes, drinking $7 lattes every day, etc.

On the other hand, I know people who spend less than $7 per day on their entire food budget. They receive just barely enough money per month to cover rent and food (and a little left over to pay for wifi and a small savings for computer upgrades) but they don't struggle from food insecurity. I live in Canada, though, so I don't know about the welfare situation in the US.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#157

Post by rank0 »

inetknght wrote: post #126
csallen wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

12% of Americans struggle from food insecurity. By definition, 20% of Americans are in the top quintile. I'm with you, I want that first number to be as close to 0% as possible. But it's mathematically untrue that there are dozens of Americans starving for every American in the top 20%. In fact, there are barely half as many.

I count myself to be lucky in the top 20% of earners in America and have friends who also fit in the range. I've met a lot of people who struggle to put food on the table whose income is in the middle 50%. A lot of them have the same complaint: they don't qualify for help because they make too much . But they also struggle to pay their bills because they don't make enough. I don't know where you think 12% of American…

I mean just think for a second. There is a maximum for 4 people for every person in the top 20%. It literally cannot be “dozens” even if the entire bottom 80% was struggling for food.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#158

Post by ralph84 »

The elite don't really care if the poor and middle class trade places with each other. They don't even care if the middle class disappears entirely. They just absolutely do not want the poor or middle class joining them in the elite, so they've made sure the system will prevent that.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#159

Post by guerrilla »

BLKNSLVR wrote: post #112
vmception wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talk with any patriotic person and you'll quickly notice that American exceptionalism relies on comparing the United States to the worst countries in the world and ignoring the existence of other developed nations. Eventually followed by "well at least we can talk about it, unlike " and so therefore all indiscretions must be absolved and ignorable since we have the "unique" ability to criticize the government at all,…

"Yeah, well Liberia also rejected the metric system".

"Yeah, well Eritrea also taxes it's ex-patriots."

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#160

Post by bluedays »

thepasswordis wrote: post #119

Regardless of how much money I make, none of my friends went to Stanford, I grew up in a boring town in a boring part of the world, and I made my money in an “unglamorous” industry. I could make $10B. I still wouldn’t reach the top level of class. Maybe my kids kids will. Here’s an attempt to say something positive about this: you guys should try to seek out those unglamorous industries, usually in unglamorous parts…

Cool, like where?
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