Equality of Opportunity

[Damuri_Ajashi]

@Really_Not_All_That_Bright

Of course not. That doesn’t mean you should toss out all the resumes from people who didn’t attend Ivy League schools.

When hiring lawyers fresh out of law school, yeah pretty much. Mostly because you don’t have very much more to go on. You might interview the top of the class from second tier schools but you toss out the rest of the resumes unless their dad if the ambassador to Australia or something like that.

@Euphonious_Polemic

Not all jobs are to be had through the traditional recruitment/resume/interview process. There is still a significant proportion that are gained through Daddy or Uncle introducing the candidate to the right people. This is particularly true with large firms.

Fresh out of school it usually is. With some experience under your belt, who you know matters but it’s more your professional a quaintances than your family acquaintances that make the difference unless your family is particularly wealthy or well connected.

[puddleglum]

@Euphonious_Polemic

It this author is correct, and the victims are completely responsible for their own lack of economic mobility for this reason, then she’ll have no problem explaining how Canadians are up to three times more economically mobile than Americans, when the rates of marriage are similar in both countries?

How does she explain the difference between the economic mobility between Canada and the US?

Rates of marriage may be similar in the US and Canada but rates of single parenthood is 50% higher in the US and the rate of divorce in the is twice that of Canada and most of that is concentrated in the lower income groups.
The mechanisms the Guardian article postulates are highly unlikely. It is true that funding for education varies greatly from one state and locality to another, but if you look at outcomes versus spending there is no correlation between spending and quality of schools. The Kansas City experience should have once and for all proven that what is causing low performing schools is not lack of financial resources. In general the strongest correlation for good performing schools in the US is proximity to the Canadian border.
Medicaid and SCHIP provide free or nearly free health care to poor americans so the cost of medical care is not what is holding back the poor from moving up the income gradient. What generally hurts people economically when they get ill is the income lost from not being able to work while sick, and this is as true in Canada as in the US.
Elite colleges in the US are very expensive but you do not need to go to an elite college to escape poverty almost any college will do and the cost of state schools in the US is very similar to colleges in Canada.

[emacknight]

@Euphonious_Polemic

A recent study seem to show that there is less equality of opportunity in the United States, as compared with other countries:

And a recent study found that Russia was better at hockey than Canada. So what does that say about how good Canada is at hockey compared to the rest of the world?

Every time I see reference to the US having less equality of opportunity it’s suggesting that because the US is lower than Canada it is some how not there. Like with the World Junior Hockey Tournament, the fact that the US didn’t win doesn’t mean the US team can’t play hockey. And we could have a similar discussion on what the differences are between the US program and the Russian one. But in reality, both are really good at hockey, one just slightly better.

@Euphonious_Polemic

Canada seems to have policies in place that are more family-friendly than the US, which help lower income people have a good quality of childhood:

There is a lot of misinformation in this thread, particularly centering around the concept of EI as it applies to mat-leave. One thing to remember is that it’s an insurance plan that people have to pay in to, and then has a long list of requirements to qualify. More importantly it is a FORCED insurance plan that is deducted from income along with all the other taxes, thus lowering an individuals take home pay.

What I find ironic is that while EI and the one year mat leave goes a long way to being pro-family and helping with economic mobility, it has a HUGE downside. As an example, my brother and his wife wanted to have kids. She was a physiotherapist in Canada and had been working for 8 years by this point, but only as full-time temporary. For 8 years she had been filling in for other people while they went on their 1 year mat-leave, and thus was never considered a full time permanent employee, and as a result wasn’t entitled to the full mat-leave benefits.

When she did get pregnant the two of them had to work very hard to keep it a secret until she could finally get full time permanent and thus go on mat leave. That permanent position is now held for her, creating a new temp position for someone else. She’ll go back to work after a year, and that person will lose their job (or move to another temp position). And a year later she’ll have another kid and go off for another year.

From what I’ve seen this severely impacts female dominated industries particularly in education. A lot of friends worked for years as full time substitutes filling in for people on mat-leave. They could work for years before getting a full time permanent position, and during that time they didn’t get counted towards seniority or a handful of other benefits, including mat-leave.

I’m pretty sure that mat-leave benefits are very good for the middle class, and help to solidify and strengthen that class, but I seriously doubt it really helps the poor. To qualify for EI benefits I believe a person has to work for at least a year at a certain job. It also only pays up to 75%* of your salary and has a maximum. Meaning that people that earn very little, get even less, and people that earn a lot don’t really benefit.

Meanwhile everyone is paying in to it. This causes all of the negative effects of taxation, including a long history of braindrain where professionals leave Canada in the 20s to work in the US, only to return to Canada to have kids.

And what’s really funny about all of this is that Canada only JUST got noticed as a good place to be. Prior to 2008 Canada had considerably higher unemployment than the US, much lower GDP growth, and fewer opportunities. I don’t see how those could be considered good features for economic mobility.

*Not sure the current number is.

[David42]

@Evil_Captor

They want to see people starving in the street. .

Horseshit. The idea is that private charity would do a better job of feeding the poor than government, not the idea of wanting to see people starving in the street.

After all, large numbers of starving people are probably going to get violent which might lead to a civil war which might lead to the wealthy losing everything.

[Evil_Captor]

@David42

Horseshit. The idea is that private charity would do a better job of feeding the poor than government, not the idea of wanting to see people starving in the street.

Except of course, in every study ever conducted over the history of social safety programs, private charity has always been shown to be woefully inadequate to deal with poverty, illness, starvation, etc. THEY DON’T CARE! So … not horseshit, no, the truth, straight from the other end of the horse.

After all, large numbers of starving people are probably going to get violent which might lead to a civil war which might lead to the wealthy losing everything.

Originally, the whole idea for armies and police was to keep the wealthy bourgeoisie safe from the peasants they were exploiting. Still applies, in many countries. Could apply here in the US too, if things get out of hand.

[emacknight]

@Evil_Captor

Except of course, in every study ever conducted over the history of social safety programs, private charity has always been shown to be woefully inadequate to deal with poverty, illness, starvation, etc. THEY DON’T CARE! So … not horseshit, no, the truth, straight from the other end of the horse.

Do you happen to have one of those studies?

I’m also curious to know if there has ever been a government that was adequate at dealing with poverty, illness, starvation, etc?

As an example, in Canada: “The Progress of Canada’s Children 2002 says that approximately 75,000 families with children under the age of 12 reported being hungry in 1996 (the last year for which data are available) - an increase of one-third from 1994.”

[Evil_Captor]

@emacknight

Do you happen to have one of those studies?

I’m also curious to know if there has ever been a government that was adequate at dealing with poverty, illness, starvation, etc?

As an example, in Canada: “The Progress of Canada’s Children 2002 says that approximately 75,000 families with children under the age of 12 reported being hungry in 1996 (the last year for which data are available) - an increase of one-third from 1994.”

here’s a link to a study about the CURRENT ineffectiveness of faith-based (which is mostly what private charity is) charities in alleviating poverty. The study itself is a pdf linked to in the very brief article in the link;

Home - Episcopal Journal

As for the rest, damn, google-bombing, a variety of keywords only finds articles from Cato Institute, Catholic Church, Heritage Foundation and other generally biased groups. All right wing bias too. I’m looking 50 pages deep in a lot of instances and finding nothing but chaff. Kinda makes me wonder what’s going on.

[emacknight]

@Evil_Captor

Except of course, in every study ever conducted over the history of social safety programs, private charity has always been shown to be woefully inadequate to deal with poverty, illness, starvation, etc. THEY DON’T CARE! So … not horseshit, no, the truth, straight from the other end of the horse.

Bolding mine. I would think that it would be easier to find a study to prove what you just said, given that every study ever conducted found private charities to be woefully inadequate.

The study you linked to was about the faith based initiative, not about what you wrote above.

Look, you’ve made a rather grandiose and broad sweeping statement, and I think it’s on you to back it up with the same level of heft.

And as a point to consider, are their any governments that you would describe as adequately dealing with poverty, illness, starvation, etc. ? What is your standard for adequacy?

@Evil_Captor

faith-based (which is mostly what private charity is) charities

Do you also happen to have a cite to back up that claim? I’m pretty sure it’s true, but would be nice if you backed up your statements a little better.

here is a list of the largest non-profits by revenue, one is obviously “religious.”

@Evil_Captor

Kinda makes me wonder what’s going on.

I have a guess…