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The LIS data is rather notoriously misleading for this reason: (as per NY Times) "The definition does not include noncash benefits, such as health care provided by a government or employer." If any definition would make the U.S. look more healthy than it is, that's the definition. We use a HUGE portion of our disposable income on healthcare. For most nations, this is a fair exclusion, but it warps the data for the U.S.
??? before Obamacare, childless low-wage adults generally did not have employer-provided healthcare benefits and did not qualify for Medicaid. So including those things would make the U.S. look worse, especially at lower incomes.
There will always be people that think that showing up and doing what you are paid to do should be rewarded with promotions and raises. To those people that is akin to hard work and dedication.
Going above and beyond to show you are ready for a promotion, staying late, doing extra, etc. are not necessary and frankly pro-corporation to this group of individuals.
It's hard for me to believe that everyone who has a job "works hard" when my time spent working in retail and other low wage jobs typically found the hard workers and those that showed up when they were scheduled getting raises, promotions, etc. Then there is the small group of employees 15-20% that can't seem to show up for a shift (have one excuse or another), purposefully disappear on their shifts, are always in the breakroom, or quit to work somewhere else in a similar role, only to be back and start over 1 year later.
To say that 95% of workers are working hard and those that aren't making 40k/yr are just getting screwed is just false.
What you say makes little sense in the context of many low-wage menial jobs. Stay late at a fast-food job? Flip extra burgers???
??? before Obamacare, childless low-wage adults generally did not have employer-provided healthcare benefits and did not qualify for Medicaid. So including those things would make the U.S. look worse, especially at lower incomes.
No, you are misreading the chart I was responding to. It shows the U.S. ahead, so you are right that a fair calculation would make the U.S. look worse. That's what I was pointing out.
Their calculation of total income, from which the disposable income calculations are made, does NOT include non-cash fringe benefits including healthcare. The chart showed the U.S. as having the most disposable income. However, because government provided health and social benefits are not "added" in other nations and not "subtracted" in the U.S., it makes our citizens look like we have a lot of disposable income.
However, because - as you correctly noted - low-wage U.S. adults did not have those fringe benefits, it means that a lot of the supposed disposable income in the chart was being spent on healthcare. Thus, the actual calculation of remaining disposable income in the U.S. would look far worse and likely would fall behind many of the other wealthy nations charted (as their citizens would not have to spend their own disposable income on those things).
What you say makes little sense in the context of many low-wage menial jobs. Stay late at a fast-food job? Flip extra burgers???
Look, people who are "successful" have a vested psychological interest in believing the system fairly rewards people like themselves and fairly excludes benefits from the poor who are not like them. That way they don't feel guilty about their success and don't have to attribute it to luck or chance, but instead to some gritty internal determination and virtue.
Yes, economic opportunities to abound in this country. But to become wealhy you need to have either (1) the right skills, (2) capital, or (3) access to capital.
Which does nothing to explain why most millionaires are self-made. They weren't born with the skills, obviously. They acquired them.
Which does nothing to explain why most millionaires are self-made. They weren't born with the skills, obviously. They acquired them.
First, there is scant explanation of "self made". Is being born into the upper middle class and graduating college with no debt and a Rolodex of reasonably viable connections the same as being born into a lower middle class or poor family and going to a state school on loans? The fact one wasn't explicitly gifted millions of dollars in a trust is not proof that one is "self made".
Second, while they weren't born with the skills, the acquisition of skills (and the precondition to acquisition of advanced skills) mostly happened without choice. Nobody chooses their parents, schools, neighborhood, peers, the work ethic taught or not taught them, the nutrition or exposure to disease they encounter as children (increasingly viewed as a very serious factor in childhood intellectual development), etc... Education discrepancies are primarily a product of class, especially when you talk about the bottom 40% versus the top 60%. If you are anywhere in the bottom 40% as a child, you face much worse odds.
Which does nothing to explain why most millionaires are self-made. They weren't born with the skills, obviously. They acquired them.
Exactly. No one was born with the skills. But they acquired it through hard work. Skills are something you have to spend time and effort to nurture. Many people in this country don't want these skills. They want to do what they love. But someone else or other people have to feed them so they can do what they love. It's a choice.
Look, people who are "successful" have a vested psychological interest in believing the system fairly rewards people like themselves and fairly excludes benefits from the poor who are not like them. That way they don't feel guilty about their success and don't have to attribute it to luck or chance, but instead to some gritty internal determination and virtue.
Success comes from many things. Fortune, luck, chance, grit, often a mix of these things. To say that this grit simply doesn't exist is exactly the core problem in the left's argument on this topic.
External factors are usually secondary. Internal determination is definitive to success.
You can have a gold mountain. But if you don't have internal drive, it means little. Lottery winners get money for free, but often they waste it just like that. The problem Tom Stanley pointed out is that many Americans do not seem to respect wealth or respect money, the same way that a person abuses its own body without self esteem.
On the contrary, many middle to lower middle earners can move ahead because of their frugality, wise investing, 20 minutes each week reviewing their finance, and respecting the value of their income. They make money work for them to generate more money. It's not complicated at all.
Being given help and money does not train people to understand where it comes from and how to get it on their own some day. It makes people feel they should receive more of it and become dependent. It precisely ruins a person's will and chances to move ahead.
Help must be provided with just enough amount with the purpose of not making people reliant on drugs. It's something that people should feel grateful about. Unfortunately, today America sends the message that it's all their rich and affluent peoples fault. Therefore, help is something that productive people owe to the rest. This is an entirely different message. It perpetuates poverty. It encourages people not to take action. Then more help is needed. And more. And more.
Yes, economic opportunities to abound in this country. But to become wealthy you need to have either (1) the right skills, (2) capital, or (3) access to capital.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Costaexpress
The right skills won't knock on your door and install themselves in you. You have to make an effort to learn and choose. A lot of americans are unwilling to undertake the learning. Some don't want to learn what isn't their best hobby. They act like spoiled teenagers polarizing mom and dad. There is a thread in personal finance board on what traits make people successful. Lots of good advice there.
I believe americans do possess the mental and cognitive potential to thrive to survive the global economy. But we must at least be willing to be realistic, to endure some hardship, to make wise decisions, to learn from mistakes. Otherwise we will likely suffer. The future world is going to be hard on us.
And if people decide that they want so called pitchforks, it would eventually damage our economy and ruin our standard of living. The proletariate class will suffer the most in that even though they may think they are having fun and being cool in some movement. America will end up in poverty. Once that clock is turned, fortune goes east and won't be back in any meaningful time. Let's see if we are going to learn it the hard way.
I had the privilege of discovering a man with the name of Earl Nightingale. Even back in the 50s, he spoke of this exact problem. Majority of people are unwilling to undertake learning or do the bare minimum.
I don't know how many others like myself are out there, but I love learning, it's an absolute obsession of mine. Physics, German, piano, programming languages, lectures on the universe, you name it, I am interested. The problem with today is hardship lasts many years, maybe multiple decades, with no real vision of an end to the suffering, well, at least for me it has.
As far as your last paragraph, this would be dependent on the federal government. The direction this country goes is 100% up to them. If they keep funding the military and cutting science the way they do, I don't see us turning into anything positive. There is so much money to be made in space, but not a single 0.01%'er is interested, very strange. It could be the initial lost of investment needed to get up there or maybe they're hoping for someone else to do it so they don't have to pay anything to pave the way.
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