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In America, Where You're Born Is Correlated With How Far You'll Go In Life

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Re: In America, Where You're Born Is Correlated With How Far You'll Go In Life

#71

Post by anishkothari »

twoodfin wrote: post #24
anishkothari wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for linking to the NYT article, much better than the Slate one. IMO access to efficient public transportation has an outsized impact on people's ability to move up the economic ladder.

How does that theory jibe with some of the best mobility results being concentrated in places like Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota and North Texas?

I should have said public transportation in cities. In more rural areas, this would be less of an issue because of the otherwise low cost of living. There is less of an opportunity cost there.

Re: In America, Where You're Born Is Correlated With How Far You'll Go In Life

#72

Post by kyllo »

saosebastiao wrote: post #38

I deleted a previous comment because I didn't accurately convey my thoughts, but I'm hoping this is more accurate. My hometown is one of the cheapest, yet most uneducated and violent cities in all of California. There was a huge class divide amongst my peers, none of whom were rich; Some could afford to move elsewhere, and others couldn't. Of those that couldn't, I would say approximately 20-30% are in prison, and th…

Unfortunately, the big reason why Seattle is getting so expensive is just because there are lucrative jobs to be had here. Same reason why Silicon Valley is so expensive, but still on a smaller scale at this point. I think we're going to see more and more of this: the cities with a lot of jobs getting very expensive to live in, and the cities with fewer job opportunities staying flat or even getting cheaper--because their economies are dying.

So, unless your income is very high, to avoid having your income canceled out by the local costs, you will either need to find a rare high-paying job in a low-jobs, low-cost city, or find rare low-cost housing in a high-jobs, high-cost city.

Not that this isn't already the case--just saying, I think America's "jobless recovery" is going to make this effect more extreme in the near future.

Re: In America, Where You're Born Is Correlated With How Far You'll Go In Life

#73

Post by tootie »

ambiate wrote: post #54
jurassic wrote: post #21

In the white trash southern town where I grew up being a teacher at $35k/yr is considered one of the better jobs available. Military service is the best option for young men who want to provide a living wage to their families, especially since no education is required. A few dozen doctors and dentists and veterinarians make bank and live like kings (not really joking... think giant sailboats docked at their beach man…

Growing up in Hattiesburg, MS, innovation was stagnant. There were no technology related jobs other than Tech Support at Comcast(who I regarded as pure evil at the time). People do not want to leave Hattiesburg. It is completely foreign to them. They want to marry young, have children, and stay within a few blocks of their family. Move to California? You're going to fall into the ocean. Move to New York? Too much cit…

I know a family in an expensive neighborhood of an elite east coast city where the wife has spent the 5 years since receiving her PhD at home with her kids.

Re: In America, Where You're Born Is Correlated With How Far You'll Go In Life

#74

Post by JRobertson »

mindcrime wrote: post #52
jurassic wrote: post #21

In the white trash southern town where I grew up being a teacher at $35k/yr is considered one of the better jobs available. Military service is the best option for young men who want to provide a living wage to their families, especially since no education is required. A few dozen doctors and dentists and veterinarians make bank and live like kings (not really joking... think giant sailboats docked at their beach man…

This sound very similar to where I grew up. I'm also from a "white trash" rural Southern area. And I grew up near the beach, so you saw huge contrast between the million dollar+ beach houses at the private end of the beach, and the rest of my county which was mostly rural, tobacco farms, timber logging for the paper companies, and Green Swamp[1]. I knew people who turned down full tuition scholarships to the flagship…

> Uuuggghh... "follow God"... uggh. Makes me want to puke. I've come to the conclusion that Christianity is just a cult, no better than any of the others, just bigger. And due to its prevalence and ubiquity, more damaging.

Those kinds of comments belong on /r/athiesm not here.

It's one thing to disagree with the choice of the person, the teachings of a particular branch, or even the idea of a God.

But statements like yours are equivalent to Christians walking around claiming that all gays are evil and will burn in hell.

They are stereotypical hate statements that lead to emotional responses instead of intellectual discussions.

Re: In America, Where You're Born Is Correlated With How Far You'll Go In Life

#75

Post by rdouble »

jcater wrote: post #62
[deleted] wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

That's not at all consistent with my experience. I'm from rural MS, but was educated in Memphis. I went back to a small town (population: 4,500) to run a business there. Before I moved on, we had built it up to just over 40 employees. Except for technical jobs (finding programmers was damn near impossible), general labor jobs were easy to fill with a variety of skill levels. The people we paid $35,000 were quite well…

I didn't notice your reply otherwise I wouldn't have deleted my post. In my home town in northwestern MN there is an agricultural experiment station which paid $35,000 for a programming job a couple years ago. I made a spreadsheet and even as a single guy with my car paid off I'd only be able to save about $700 a month on that salary. And that's as a renter. Granted, heating costs are much more expensive in northwestern MN than they are in the south and a rental is a bit more expensive than $400. That said, if I had kids to support I would have had to live in a trailer park and would have qualified for food stamps.

I don't think that living in a rental and saving $700 a month is "solidly middle class" in the USA. Perhaps it is now, though, in a world of permanently diminished expectations.

Re: In America, Where You're Born Is Correlated With How Far You'll Go In Life

#76

Post by jarek »

bluedino wrote: post #68

I don't understand why people in terrible positions stay where they are. I realize it takes at least some money to move, you need a way to get where you're going and you need money when you get there to eat and have a place to stay, but previous generations were much more mobile than we are now. My grandparents constantly re-located to where the work was. They did construction so they'd move to where a big hurricane…

> My grandparents constantly re-located to where the work was.

So... how often have you moved to where the work was?

Re: In America, Where You're Born Is Correlated With How Far You'll Go In Life

#77

Post by gyardley »

This bottom-quintile to top-quintile measurement is annoying. A 'low mobility' area could be largely due to less upwardly-mobile poor or less downwardly-mobile affluent, and thanks to the researchers' weak choice of metric it's impossible to tell which.

Re: In America, Where You're Born Is Correlated With How Far You'll Go In Life

#78

Post by pitt1980 »

wf wrote: post #35
twoodfin wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does that theory jibe with some of the best mobility results being concentrated in places like Nebraska, Kansas, Minnesota and North Texas?

I'm not an economist but I do wonder if the reasons some of those places have higher mobility is because the previous generation in those areas have relatively low income jobs (i.e. mostly agriculture) and many of the current generation have a "gotta get out of here" mentality leading them to better paying opportunities elsewhere. I know I felt that way living in the mid-west in early high school. I'd like to see a m…

those areas have/ or are near to natural resources that provide well paying blue collar work

which I think explains the results you see almost entirely

Re: In America, Where You're Born Is Correlated With How Far You'll Go In Life

#79

Post by fistofjohnwayne »

A note to anyone reading this who's living in the red zones, feeling discouraged.

It's going to be hard. You'll have to seize every opportunity and work as hard as you can with each one because you don't have the money to buy second chances. You'll have to work twice as hard to get a quarter of the distance. You'll have to say goodbye to those that stayed behind because almost everyone will stay. You're going to have survivor's guilt. Your religion will evolve so please don't sacrifice any opportunities over the beliefs you hold today.

If you stay strong, work hard and have a lot of luck you can make it out.

Re: In America, Where You're Born Is Correlated With How Far You'll Go In Life

#80

Post by nobodysfool »

ambiate wrote: post #54
jurassic wrote: post #21

In the white trash southern town where I grew up being a teacher at $35k/yr is considered one of the better jobs available. Military service is the best option for young men who want to provide a living wage to their families, especially since no education is required. A few dozen doctors and dentists and veterinarians make bank and live like kings (not really joking... think giant sailboats docked at their beach man…

Growing up in Hattiesburg, MS, innovation was stagnant. There were no technology related jobs other than Tech Support at Comcast(who I regarded as pure evil at the time). People do not want to leave Hattiesburg. It is completely foreign to them. They want to marry young, have children, and stay within a few blocks of their family. Move to California? You're going to fall into the ocean. Move to New York? Too much cit…

Why should you be sad about personal choices others make? Stop judging people, learn to accept them and you'll be a happier person. For those "masters" - they likely put a higher priority on family than on career, so the view that they 'did nothing with it' is idiotic. They just have different priorities than you.
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