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Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

nytimes.com

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Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#101

Post by TangoTrotFox »

acchow wrote: post #43
tosser00001 wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pew Reasearch puts the number at 3.5%, which I think is quite high enough to impact growth. But downward wage pressure at the lowest sectors comes from both legal and illegal immigration. It would be interesting to see what at short term lowering of immigration would have on wage growth.

Aren't a lot of these immigrants doing highly skilled and highly paid labor? They don't depress wage growth for low paying jobs. And they actually increase demand for their products.

You're conflating two groups. There are legal immigrants who stay, generally under the sponsorship of a company, and there are illegal immigrants who either come by illegally crossing the border, or by overstaying a legally obtained visa. Legal immigrants do tend to be highly skilled and relatively highly paid, though their wages are often lower than citizen workers in the same field - which can depress wages overall. Illegal immigrants by contrast tend to be involved in low skill and low pay labor, often done under the table.

Personally, I have nothing at all against the illegal sort. Day laborers, for instance, tend to be great workers and good people, happy to put in a hard day's work for a $50 and some good meals. At the same time though, I have to consider that this is really distorting the economy since it drags down wages for all people willing to do this work to that level, which is not really fair to people that want to make a living doing this work but want a higher standard of living, to raise a family, etc.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#102

Post by blub »

burfog wrote: post #86
bsder wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Where people wind up is very much a consequence of their choices. True. But we also have lots of studies showing that the best of the lowest socioeconomic class almost never do better than the laziest of the uppermost socioeconomic class.

We have social mobility, not a social lottery. Moving all the way from the bottom to the top might take a couple generations, which will obviously involve needing to win at a fierce competition. That looks an awful lot like a meritocracy.

That sounds like a crap deal honestly. Come to the US, you'll probably still die poor, but at least maybe your grandchildren will do well. *

* does not apply if you or your children get shot by the police for being the wrong shade of brown, maimed by unsafe working conditions associated with low-skilled labour, get sacked because you ask for a raise, etc.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#103

Post by whatever1 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #88
whatever1 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The People do not have stake at company A. Company A does not share the true values of the People. Company A is now banned. Repeat until all companies comply.

This argument makes no sense. Huawei is banned in America.

In Trump’s America.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#104

Post by [deleted] »

xivzgrev wrote: post #90
fzeroracer wrote: post #79

I broke out of poverty. Why can't they do it too? It was a simple thing for me, a combination of studying hard, focusing on my future and the death of my father. You see, my parents were both fishermen. It's a grueling, painful job that can destroy your body as you age leaving you with back problems and forcing you to retire early. It also paid poorly and had a lot of risks. Which unfortunately for us, resulted in th…

I'm sorry to hear about your parents. However I don't know what your point is. On one hand you say your hard work and focus on future got you out of poverty. Then you say your parents are an example of where hard work and grit are NOT all you need. Honestly it sounds like you were born with a certain amount of intelligence, got some money to go to college, and you made the most of it. But where would you be if you ha…

[deleted]

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#105

Post by mrpopo »

xivzgrev wrote: post #90
fzeroracer wrote: post #79

I broke out of poverty. Why can't they do it too? It was a simple thing for me, a combination of studying hard, focusing on my future and the death of my father. You see, my parents were both fishermen. It's a grueling, painful job that can destroy your body as you age leaving you with back problems and forcing you to retire early. It also paid poorly and had a lot of risks. Which unfortunately for us, resulted in th…

I'm sorry to hear about your parents. However I don't know what your point is. On one hand you say your hard work and focus on future got you out of poverty. Then you say your parents are an example of where hard work and grit are NOT all you need. Honestly it sounds like you were born with a certain amount of intelligence, got some money to go to college, and you made the most of it. But where would you be if you ha…

> On one hand you say your hard work and focus on future got you out of poverty.

I think that was just to add to the shock factor. The point was that his hard work would not have taken him anywhere, were it not for the money brought by his father's accident lawsuit.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#106

Post by throwaway2048 »

noobermin wrote: post #30
hogwild wrote: post #9

The woman in this story is handcuffed by her decision to have 3 kids. Show me the 20 year old dropout. Explain why he/she can't devote themselves to self improvement.

The article points out this is is a vanishingly small percentage: >That is, among the poor, two in 100 are working-age adults disconnected from the labor market for unknown reasons. The nonworking poor person getting something for nothing is a lot like the cheat committing voter fraud: pariahs who loom far larger in the American imagination than in real life.

But make fantastic deflection ammo for those who benefit heavily from the status quo.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#107

Post by alextheparrot »

fzeroracer wrote: post #79

I broke out of poverty. Why can't they do it too? It was a simple thing for me, a combination of studying hard, focusing on my future and the death of my father. You see, my parents were both fishermen. It's a grueling, painful job that can destroy your body as you age leaving you with back problems and forcing you to retire early. It also paid poorly and had a lot of risks. Which unfortunately for us, resulted in th…

Your story resonates so much with me - thank you for sharing.

Similarily, it wasn’t applying for oodles of financial aid/loans, working throughout college, and applying for scores of scholarships that let me study software engineering - it was the fact that my great-aunt, who I have exactly one memory of, left a fund to cover rent and books each semester. That arbitrary, fortunate fact gave me the substrate with which to form my education.

Hard work will only get you so far when you show up to the pottery wheel without clay.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#108

Post by marnett »

fzeroracer wrote: post #79

I broke out of poverty. Why can't they do it too? It was a simple thing for me, a combination of studying hard, focusing on my future and the death of my father. You see, my parents were both fishermen. It's a grueling, painful job that can destroy your body as you age leaving you with back problems and forcing you to retire early. It also paid poorly and had a lot of risks. Which unfortunately for us, resulted in th…

i can't tell if you actually think it is simple or not. you and your mother are fortunate for that professional class lawyer who worked pro-bono for no material gain whatsoever.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#109

Post by MarkMc »

icu wrote: post #78
greeneggs wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This does not seem obvious to me. For example, imagine if you overnight doubled the US population. Would wages go down? Well, overnight you would also double the economy and double demand for just about every kind of work, from hairdressers to security guards. What's the overall effect? (And you are talking about just 3.5%, not 100%.) Here's one classic study on the effect: David Card, "The Impact of the Mariel Boatl…

We can actually hold for immigration to some degree. For example, while not exactly doubling, the entry of women into the workforce after WWII had a similar effect of massively increasing the the supply of labour. You would think that two income earners in a household would increase the economy enough that wages would need to rise due to a subsequent shortage of labor... but it did not. Wages, in real terms, have lar…

> Wages, in real terms, have largely lost purchasing power to the point where it takes two incomes to have the same (or less) purchasing power than one income did prior to WWII.

I don't think that is true. Even if you exclude management jobs, hourly wages have remained roughly steady in real terms since the 1960's: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-...

There are also longitudinal effects at play: native-born Americans have seen their wages rise but this is offset by immigrants who generally have lower-than-average wages (but still higher than in the country they emigrated from). Both groups are better off even though average wages haven't changed.

Re: Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not

#110

Post by skookumchuck »

blub wrote: post #93
skookumchuck wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the meritocratic myth I've been around to see people over decades, and how their decisions affect their lives. Meritocracy is not a myth. Where people wind up is very much a consequence of their choices. This isn't the Soviet Union where one is assigned a career, a job and an apartment. I've seen immigrants arrive here with nothing and become millionaires. That's why everyone wants to come to America. The opportuni…

What you've seen is irrelevant, when on the whole the lower and middle classes suffer due to lack of a social safety net and an extreme form of capitalism. There's a large amount of news articles which describe the situation of labour in the US. If things keep going like this, those millionares will soon have to build their own fortress cities to keep all the undesirable and disgruntled poor people away. The fact tha…

I know people who profess to be victims, too. I'll tick off the choices they made that got them where they are. Of course, they get angry with me. Nobody wants to hear the truth.

Where I am, the good and the bad, is nearly entirely the sum of my choices. For example, if you floss or not eventually has a large effect on your health. Ditto for the amount you choose to drink, smoke, and exercise. Where you choose to live, who you choose to marry, who you pick for friends, what you do with your free time, do you work to excel in school or do just enough to squeak by, what major do you select in college, it just goes on and on.

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