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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

#321

Post by pipodeclown »

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 don't think moving to the top 20% is such a strange metric to look at. Isn't that the 'american dream'? This is especially so if you use it as a comparative metric. The study isn't solely looking at this metric to determine whether social mobility in the US is a thing, it is using it as a metric to compare social mobility with other countries, in that sense I think it is valuable.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#322

Post by pipodeclown »

wreath wrote: post #282
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Can you elaborate or share any studies that show Europe has better mobility opportunities than the US? Also what part of Europe are we talking, Germany? Romania? Portugal or maybe Poland?

That is what the article being commented on, is about, it goes into the results of a study that investigates social mobility per country. More generally, there is also a report by the world economic forum which indexes countries on social mobility, European countries top that list.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#323

Post by derangedHorse »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #216
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 read about another study relatively recently (maybe it was HN? Not sure.) that talked about some of the fundamental flaws when looking at these types of economic mobility studies (i.e. change of moving from bottom quintile to top quintile, etc.) because they usually only look at income and ignore social class . That is, suppose Bob is a rich banker. His kid Frank goes to private school and on to an Ivy League colle…

I don't think the amount of "rich" people (and their descendants) are a significant enough proportion of the population to render the results completely inert.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#324

Post by defaultprimate »

fourtrees wrote: post #181
forgotmyoldname wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, wars were fought over that and revolutions had. People decidedly did not like royalty, large so-wealthy-it's-hard-to-achieve groups, being so far above them. For a while, people much preferred knowing they could work hard or smart and make progress from the bottom to the top 20%. We're talking about the top 20% here. Not the top 0.1%.

This is one of my big take-aways from the article. My great-(great?-)-grandparents from Eastern Europe armed with nothing but excellent numeracy, some English, and the clothes on their backs. They could reliably expect to enter move out of post-immigration poverty based on skills cultivated for the purpose of success in the US. My great-x-grandfather ended up a bank manager. And they passed money and knowledge along…

>But that sort of outcome seems almost impossible in America today

Then you don't know enough about how well, for example, African and central Asian refugees or immigrants do in a single generation. Same for Hispanic immigrants within a generation or two.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#325

Post by defaultprimate »

theonemind wrote: post #177
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.

An unreachable tier of society indicates a fundamental social injustice. They're in the top 20% of wealth...not intelligence, or in any other factor making them deserving of it. Some of them did work hard, and probably deserve it if you consider hard work deserving of it...but, some people worked harder and didn't make it, so it's not a 1-to-1 equation. So there's a huge element of luck, which is kind of like a slave…

Who determines who deserves what?

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#326

Post by ianbutler »

DarylZero wrote: post #227
ianbutler wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if you consider hard work deserving of it" Do you mean to say people who do nothing deserve wealth?

LOL where are these "people who do nothing"

There are multiple people I’ve known who do the bare minimum to continue their existence and from the ones I’ve known I’m sure they’d contribute nothing if they were able to. I don’t consider it a particularly valid way to live. There are a lot more who do try to make their lives better though.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#327

Post by ianbutler »

jwolfe wrote: post #267
ianbutler wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"if you consider hard work deserving of it" Do you mean to say people who do nothing deserve wealth?

It seems in context that they're saying that you may or may not consider the fact that you worked hard and then were heartily rewarded to mean that you deserved the result. Especially in the context of many many other people working just as hard and not getting the same result.

That makes more sense, it was more suggesting effort and result aren’t always directly causally connected even if people feel their hard work was what produced the result. Yeah that checks out in my experience.

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#328

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

8note wrote: post #298
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Isn't that selling your house to immediately move into another house for the same price?

No, 1031: https://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/0110/10-things-t...

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#329

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

jfrunyon wrote: post #235
onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

That's laughably twisted. Just because someone makes a ton of money in a year (i.e. from inheritance, life insurance, or something else) means absolutely nothing about their wealth.

Inheritance NOR life insurance payouts are considered income by the IRS: https://www.irs.gov/faqs/interest-dividends-other-types-of-i....

Re: Americans overestimate social mobility in their country

#330

Post by rpmisms »

mitigating wrote: post #257
rpmisms wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

California is ~1 point below the national average in marriages and divorces. By comparison, Maine is 4 points over the marriage average and 3 points under the divorce average. I should have remembered my audience and not made a joke about California's differences from the rest of the country. https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2020/12/united-states...

Now why would you mention Maine? I guess then I would say Arkansas has the worst divorce rate ( https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/states-with... 2020). I assume that's the whole thing we're doing here?, blue state, red state? I responded to your original comment because you said "and in my area the working class is very Catholic, black, or both. YMMV, not valid in California." which you say is a joke.…

Maine isn't hard red, they do lean red but tend to elect very moderate people. I looked at the map of states by divorce and marriage vs the average and noticed Maine is nuptually superior.

California is an exception to all sorts of rules, due in part to its diversity and insane wealth. I could have said "Marriage is known to the State of California to cause cancer" and have been making the same joke.

Please note that I'm northeastern, and Cali/NYC are the butt of almost every joke, because both places have such a massive disconnect from the reality of middle America. I bet people from rural California know exactly the feeling I'm describing.

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