Why Are Poor People Poor? (fast food, minimum wage, how much, school)
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Sorry. There is plenty of statistical data to support economic mobility in this country. Recently the IRS did a ten-year study, tracking the individual tax returns of literally thousands of Americans.
Their findings were surprising. Over a ten-year period, those individuals who started the survey in the lowest 20% income ranges saw their income increase 93% on average, while those starting out in the highest 20% saw their income increase 26%. That hardly supports the "rich get richer, poor get poorer" nonsense.
I am certainly no Bible beater or social Darwinist, but I would argue that the chief factor for people remaining in poverty is an unstable family situation. I don't care how many support services there are, there is simply no substitute for a two-parent home to ensure that a child is equipped to succeed in life. If a teenager has a child outside of a stable relationship, the odds of that person succeeding in life grow long. If that same person has two children, the odds grow worse. And I don't care how many heartwarming anecdotes you hear about single moms raising perfect, overachieving kids. The reality is far different from the Movie of The Week scenarios you see on television.
Why? Because anybody who has children knows that they're work. Just the energy one has to put into educating, feeding, clothing, and teaching the child how to behave consumes all of one's energy.
So, while I know there are some people who have just suffered from bad breaks in life, most poor people remain poor people for a reason. And if you want to economically succeed in this country, or almost anywhere else, the formula is pretty simple:
1) Stay in school. And be a lifelong learner. I'm amazed at how many people get a college degree and then steadfastly refuse to learn new skills.
2) Work hard in your job. What you accomplish on a daily basis is far more important than playing politics.
3) Delay having children until at least your mid to late 20s. That way you start life with a more solid financial foundation.
4) Spend less than what you make. Invest and save the rest. Even if it's $50 a month. However, if you sock away 5% a year into an 401K with a 50% employer match, you'll have around $2,000,000 by the time you're 65.
5) Keep alert to opportunities. Always be prepared to move outside your comfort zone to take advantage of them.
Sorry. There is plenty of statistical data to support economic mobility in this country. Recently the IRS did a ten-year study, tracking the individual tax returns of literally thousands of Americans.
Their findings were surprising. Over a ten-year period, those individuals who started the survey in the lowest 20% income ranges saw their income increase 93% on average, while those starting out in the highest 20% saw their income increase 26%. That hardly supports the "rich get richer, poor get poorer" nonsense.
I am certainly no Bible beater or social Darwinist, but I would argue that the chief factor for people remaining in poverty is an unstable family situation. I don't care how many support services there are, there is simply no substitute for a two-parent home to ensure that a child is equipped to succeed in life. If a teenager has a child outside of a stable relationship, the odds of that person succeeding in life grow long. If that same person has two children, the odds grow worse. And I don't care how many heartwarming anecdotes you hear about single moms raising perfect, overachieving kids. The reality is far different from the Movie of The Week scenarios you see on television.
Why? Because anybody who has children knows that they're work. Just the energy one has to put into educating, feeding, clothing, and teaching the child how to behave consumes all of one's energy.
So, while I know there are some people who have just suffered from bad breaks in life, most poor people remain poor people for a reason. And if you want to economically succeed in this country, or almost anywhere else, the formula is pretty simple:
1) Stay in school. And be a lifelong learner. I'm amazed at how many people get a college degree and then steadfastly refuse to learn new skills.
2) Work hard in your job. What you accomplish on a daily basis is far more important than playing politics.
3) Delay having children until at least your mid to late 20s. That way you start life with a more solid financial foundation.
4) Spend less than what you make. Invest and save the rest. Even if it's $50 a month. However, if you sock away 5% a year into an 401K with a 50% employer match, you'll have around $2,000,000 by the time you're 65.
5) Keep alert to opportunities. Always be prepared to move outside your comfort zone to take advantage of them.
You wouldn't be from Mountain Brook, Alabama would you? Just wondering (and it figures if so/just kidding).
Also, did you pull those statistics from a Thomas Sowell article? I may have read the same article. Keep in mind, though, that a 93% increase in a small amount of income is still a small amount of income. If you go from making $10,000 one year to making $20,000 ten years later you're not exactly on your way to the top of the ladder. And if you're rich but your taxable income goes down 26% in 10 years that doesn't mean you got less rich, it more likely means that you found better ways to make your wealth not reported as income, or you retired and are living off your previous earnings. According to most studies, America has among the most resilient rich and chronically poor in the developed world. Statistics can be deceiving, whether they come from Thomas Sowell or from the EPI.
You wouldn't be from Mountain Brook, Alabama would you? Just wondering (and it figures if so/just kidding).
Also, did you pull those statistics from a Thomas Sowell article? I may have read the same article. Keep in mind, though, that a 93% increase in a small amount of income is still a small amount of income. If you go from making $10,000 one year to making $20,000 ten years later you're not exactly on your way to the top of the ladder. And if you're rich but your taxable income goes down 26% in 10 years that doesn't mean you got less rich, it more likely means that you found better ways to make your wealth not reported as income, or you retired and are living off your previous earnings. According to most studies, America has among the most resilient rich and chronically poor in the developed world. Statistics can be deceiving, whether they come from Thomas Sowell or from the EPI.
You can't have it both ways. I hear it argued time and time again that an increase in taxes to the rich by 3% wouldn't make a difference because they have so much money already... but taxing the poor by an additional 3% will ruin their lives. So which is it?
Obviously going from $10,000 to $20,000 a year wouldn't be awesome to the extent that going from $10,000 a year to $5,000 a year would suck... I'm not sure what you're trying to get across. Show me your logic.
Obviously going from $10,000 to $20,000 a year wouldn't be awesome to the extent that going from $10,000 a year to $5,000 a year would suck... I'm not sure what you're trying to get across. Show me your logic.
Yes, I am. However, I'm a new resident having moved there from Forest Park last year after 13 years.
Sure, I'll quote Thomas Sowell. But even when you look at the myth of the declining middle class, the numbers really don't hold up. If the mythical middle class has shrunk, it's because more people have moved into upper income levels, not moved down.
What's more, we keep defining the standard of poverty upwards. More cars, larger living units all figure into today's calculation. I do a good deal of work with public housing, and I know this to be the case. Here's another case in point. In the South until the late 1950s, the biggest health problems among the poor stemmed from malnutrition. Now the biggest health problems among the poor stem from overeating or eating too much food of poor nutritional value.
And if you really want an accurate barometer of income growth in this country, look at how household income has grown in this country compared to other industrialized nations. For example, in the early 1980s, France, Germany, and Italy, all enjoyed household incomes from 70-85% of American households, and the gap was declining. Today, it's in the 40-55% range, a clear indication of how the United States is continuing to grow personal income levels as compared to the rest of the world.
Obviously going from $10,000 to $20,000 a year wouldn't be awesome to the extent that going from $10,000 a year to $5,000 a year would suck... I'm not sure what you're trying to get across. Show me your logic.
What? Doubling a person's salary that makes 10k per year has way more of an impact on their quality of life than doubling a person's salary who makes $250k per year. And that's not even the stat that we're talking about... we're talking about 93% vs 26%. With those figures it would be $10,000 -> $19,300 and $250,000 -> $315,000.
It's not about what you can spend it on, it's about the vast improvement in what you are used to seeing.
What? Doubling a person's salary that makes 10k per year has way more of an impact on their quality of life than doubling a person's salary who makes $250k per year. And that's not even the stat that we're talking about... we're talking about 93% vs 26%. With those figures it would be $10,000 -> $19,300 and $250,000 -> $315,000.
It's not about what you can spend it on, it's about the vast improvement in what you are used to seeing.
If you're on the bottom, there's nowhere to go but up. The reverse is true for those on the top. Rich people usually settle down and stop worrying about making as much money as they possibly can, eventually. And most people not staying on the absolute bottom for 10 years or longer isn't evidence of exceptional income mobility.
If you're on the bottom, there's nowhere to go but up. The reverse is true for those on the top. Rich people usually settle down and stop worrying about making as much money as they possibly can, eventually. And most people not staying on the absolute bottom for 10 years or longer isn't evidence of exceptional income mobility.
It's evidence that there's a difference between being poor and being broke. People who are broke ran into hard times because they lost their job, got hit with an incredibly high medical bill, or got divorced and have to pay child support plus alimony and support themselves. They have mobility because their situation is temporary... they have the skills and determination not to be poor.
What's more, we keep defining the standard of poverty upwards.
As do most developed countries. Poor people have more cars nowadays because they have to have them more than they used to, with the decline of public transportation, urban sprawl, and other sociogeographic (I don't know if that's a word) processes.
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I do a good deal of work with public housing, and I know this to be the case. Here's another case in point. In the South until the late 1950s, the biggest health problems among the poor stemmed from malnutrition. Now the biggest health problems among the poor stem from overeating or eating too much food of poor nutritional value.
Right... now instead of not having enough money to buy any food, they don't have enough money to buy healthy food. You don't have to eat THAT much dollar-menu McDonald's to get fat.
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And if you really want an accurate barometer of income growth in this country, look at how household income has grown in this country compared to other industrialized nations. For example, in the early 1980s, France, Germany, and Italy, all enjoyed household incomes from 70-85% of American households, and the gap was declining. Today, it's in the 40-55% range, a clear indication of how the United States is continuing to grow personal income levels as compared to the rest of the world.
Household income for who, though? If one person recieved the US GDP's worth of income then the "household income" would double. Are we talking median or average?
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