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> Hmmm but it doesn't look so bad when you consider that 67% of poor college grads are at least 50-percentile in wealth Where does it show that? The chart you

> Hmmm but it doesn't look so bad when you consider that 67% of poor college grads are at least 50-percentile in wealth Where does it show that? The chart you linked to shows income quintiles, not wealth. I couldn't find it in the article either, but may have overlooked it. A wealth visualization would be quite appropriate here though, as a high income does not necessarily lead to retaining wealth. Some suggest that those who grow up poor struggle to manage their money, so it would be interesting to see if those who came from poor families with higher earnings became rich themselves, or if they remained poor. > I'm sure is even better when you compare poor high school dropouts vs. poor college graduates, which is why a college degree may still be worth the money and the best pathway out of poverty I'm not sure what you are really going to glean from that comparison? People generally don't drop out of high school without a reason. Usually, those reasons are what also lead them to do poorly in the workplace. If you try to compare education and income like that, you end up with a bias towards those whose situation did not provide the problems that resulted in them dropping out of school and doing poorly in the workplace. What may be revealed here is that rich kids have more opportunity. They have all the reasons to drop out that the poor have, but additional reasons such as having a golden opportunity at the family business or within the family's social network. The latter does not negatively impact their future because they dropped out for positive reasons, not because they had a deeper problem that was holding them back in their schooling and continued to hold them back in the workplace.

nostrebored 10y ago
I think this is overlooking another potential factor: Rich culture is better than poor culture. A college dropout who has grown up rich is going to be more likely to value knowledge than a poor person, will have been exposed to more money management, and being rich is positively correlated with making good life decisions. Contrast that with poor culture, where we know that the inverse is true in many cases: Knowledge is not valued to the same degree -- or at least not the same type of knowledge. Money management might have been understanding how to live paycheck to paycheck (which is a valuable skill, but not the same as understanding how to save). And being poor is positively correlated with making bad decisions. The more that I unlearn my "poor person habits", the better my life becomes. While I always enjoyed learning, so much of my time was spent on useless, consumerists things. I binged on television and video games. As recent studies have shown, rich people were more likely to have been doing something productive (networking/reading etc.) with that time.
- kenjackson 10y ago
  Rich culture is better than poor culture when you're rich. When you're poor the decision of the poor are often more rational.
- hkt 10y ago
  Being poor is actually associated with making modally appropriate decisions. That is to say that people adjust to it. Case in point is discounting: offer someone £20 today or £100 in a year. A person poor enough will likely take the money now, and this is because it has more value to them now. People aren't awful, they're adjusted to circumstances that are awful, being the products of a sick system. Properly provisioned welfare - a genuine safety net instead of a humiliation - could prevent the circumstances that lead to this kind of adjustment. Economics has much to say about how people value things differently based on their circumstances. There is no "better" or "worse".
  - nostrebored 10y ago
    'There is no "better" or "worse".' This assumes that everyone is a rational actor. Unfortunately, assuming that everyone is effective at allocating resources or time is unsafe and wildly inaccurate. My mother's hours spent cutting coupons rather than finding a job (over years) misvalued the long term impact of having a job and developing a career. My father's allocation of money that we did not have to cigarettes rather than a savings account had extremely negative long term effects. I grew up around poor people, and I saw their mistakes. I made their mistakes, and I still do. Which isn't to say that all poor people are incapable of making effective financial decisions, just that the distribution is skewed; there are "better" and "worse" valuations of things, and fundamentally people who are worse at making these valuations will on average be poorer.

nostrebored 10y ago

I think this is overlooking another potential factor: Rich culture is better than poor culture. A college dropout who has grown up rich is going to be more likely to value knowledge than a poor person, will have been exposed to more money management, and being rich is positively correlated with making good life decisions. Contrast that with poor culture, where we know that the inverse is true in many cases: Knowledge is not valued to the same degree -- or at least not the same type of knowledge. Money management might have been understanding how to live paycheck to paycheck (which is a valuable skill, but not the same as understanding how to save). And being poor is positively correlated with making bad decisions. The more that I unlearn my "poor person habits", the better my life becomes. While I always enjoyed learning, so much of my time was spent on useless, consumerists things. I binged on television and video games. As recent studies have shown, rich people were more likely to have been doing something productive (networking/reading etc.) with that time.

kenjackson 10y ago
Rich culture is better than poor culture when you're rich. When you're poor the decision of the poor are often more rational.
hkt 10y ago
Being poor is actually associated with making modally appropriate decisions. That is to say that people adjust to it. Case in point is discounting: offer someone £20 today or £100 in a year. A person poor enough will likely take the money now, and this is because it has more value to them now. People aren't awful, they're adjusted to circumstances that are awful, being the products of a sick system. Properly provisioned welfare - a genuine safety net instead of a humiliation - could prevent the circumstances that lead to this kind of adjustment. Economics has much to say about how people value things differently based on their circumstances. There is no "better" or "worse".
- nostrebored 10y ago
  'There is no "better" or "worse".' This assumes that everyone is a rational actor. Unfortunately, assuming that everyone is effective at allocating resources or time is unsafe and wildly inaccurate. My mother's hours spent cutting coupons rather than finding a job (over years) misvalued the long term impact of having a job and developing a career. My father's allocation of money that we did not have to cigarettes rather than a savings account had extremely negative long term effects. I grew up around poor people, and I saw their mistakes. I made their mistakes, and I still do. Which isn't to say that all poor people are incapable of making effective financial decisions, just that the distribution is skewed; there are "better" and "worse" valuations of things, and fundamentally people who are worse at making these valuations will on average be poorer.