The correlation between the earnings of father and son is 0.47 in the U.S. compared with 0.32 in Germany, 0.19 in Canada, and 0.15 in Denmark. (It might be useful to see the figures “controlled for race.”) Even a Koch-funded scholar writing in Forbes.Com calls attention to this problem.
Especially amusing, and indicting, is this report (pdf). Among developed countries, U.S. is one of the worst for economic mobility, losing to U.K. by some metrics, but “besting” it in others. Yet (see Figure 1), when asked to evaluate these statements [U.S. response shown in brackets]:
People get rewarded for their effort [nearly max agree]
People get rewarded for their intelligence and skills [max agree]
Coming from a wealthy family is essential/very important to getting ahead [disagree]
Differences in income in (country) are too large [max disagree]
It is responsibility of the government to reduce the differences in income [max disagree]
Americans thought their country was more egalitarian than the citizens of 26 other countries thought about their own countries, in three of five cases having the maximum percentage opinion among the 27 countries surveyed!
Capitalism is the same. If the economy is not growing, or being fed by some external source of wealth, then the total distribution of wealth is just the sum of the parts. Which is a zero-sum game.
Profit, minus the owner’s portion, minus the worker’s portion, adds up to zero. In capitalism that’s 100% minus 100%, so the math there is even easier. Absolutely zero sum.
Honestly, there are gazillions of cites on the interwebs. Just google ‘reserve army labour’ and you will have yourself a veritable lifetime of reading.
I’m going to tell YOU to stop fishing for ways to make me your adversary. This is not about assigning “fault”. I made a post that was pretty thorough and comprehensive. Read the entire thing. I have nothing more to add.
I’m not fishing for anything, except what you think. You had a really comprehensive post, and I appreciate it. But when someone doesn’t do that, I’m interested in whether or not your think it’s their fault for not doing it.
The side that “won” was the one that wanted a high wage floor to keep the undesirables from taking jobs from Real Americans (white men), that is, until Eugenics got rid of said undesirables.
No need to guarantee anything when there were plenty of jobs to be had. From Leonard’s Illiberal Reformers: Race, Eugenics & American Economics in the Progressive Era:
Don’t forget about them womenfolk, who should be at home:
There are plenty of way to help poor people. A high wage floor largely misses that target (most bottom-quintile households today have zero earners) and was fully intended to remove a large segment of poor people from employment when it was first being proposed.
The inter-country disparity in mobility is primarily based on old methods by the likes of Corak – you’ll see his older work cited a few times in the Brookings study, and it’s the basis of Figure 2. Problem is those numbers are bunk. Corak doesn’t even use them any more. The current thinking is that all countries have similarly low mobility. Exactly how low varies depending on what you’re measuring. E.g. Clark’s values and Corak’s (new) values aren’t the same, but they both show low country-to-country difference. More discussion in this thread from last May: https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=854339
I used to believe this. And then, a political party (who shall Remain nameless) decided that poor immigrants, legal immigrants, who had been “helped” were a problem, and proposed revoking their legal residency status and booting them from the country.
It was at that point that I decided to no longer believe that SNAP, WIC, Free School Lunch, or any other type of welfare was an acceptable way to help poor people. Even though these programs allow for aid to be directed only to those who need it, we have a bunch of shitbags in government who are looking to weaponize financial aid. So, fuck it, the only acceptable answer today is a high minimum wage, universal health care and tax credits to the poor funded by increasing taxes on the wealthy.
I think a lot of this is kind of misleading; how are they measuring that exactly? It’s probably true that a given “family” in the sense of a set of parents and their children don’t likely move much economically. That’s an unrealistic expectation IMO, and part of the problem we face- everyone seems to want to be rich or wealthy immediately, and few people are really willing to put in the long term effort to set up their kids in lieu of enjoying whatever creature comforts they can.
But it’s not unreasonable or uncommon that a family might set the stage for their children to do a little bit better than they did, and so on, and so forth. It’s the kind of thing that basically requires a family tradition of trying to set your children up to have things better than you did- usually through education. Granted, this scheme would eventually top out at upper middle class, above which is basically where the results of education and hard work end, and where familial wealth and luck start kicking in hard.
But there’s nothing that says that a poor family can’t set their kids up to be working class, and then their kids could move into the lower middle, and theirs into the middle, and so on. Eventually someone will buy a home and pass that down, and there’ll be family assets.
The problem is that as I see things, there are a lot of parents out there who aren’t really looking out for their children in the long term; they’re trying to better their own lot. I was shocked at how many people I’ve met whose parents basically said “You’re 18 and out of high school. See ya.” and didn’t pay for college, trade school, or even give them a place to stay and build up a financial reserve in their first job. Or whose parents refused to let their college grad children live at home for a few months for the same reason. Or who don’t read to their children regularly. And I’m talking about middle class people here too.
That’s ***NOT ***how you build wealth and success within a family. It may be how you make your own life cushy, but it doesn’t do much for intergenerational economic mobility.
Again, most bottom-quintile households have zero earners, so your high minimum wage is going sail right over them. And no individual in my household needs the help of a high MW, if say my hypothetical teen got a job. But if you want some tax credit or negative tax or what have you and want to tax me for it, go for it.