7 ms·

First, let us correct your assumptions: Very few Americans get out of poverty. Social mobility rates are surprisingly small in the United States. The American

by hapless 16y ago

First, let us correct your assumptions: Very few Americans get out of poverty. Social mobility rates are surprisingly small in the United States. The American Everyman is very likely to die in the class into which he was born. Secondly, not falling into poverty in the first place really is a question of help. Wealthy people (read: almost all HN users) have networks of wealthy people to assist them when times get hard -- parents, children, siblings, friends. The poor do not. Poor folks have networks of other poor folks. If I lose my job and my house, I have a year of cash and goodwill to live on, couch-surfing and stretching savings. If a member of the working poor suffers a setback on the way out of poverty, he could be back to square one, or worse, in a matter of weeks.

gthank 16y ago
Re: help networks -> poor people might not have a network that can make a house payment for them, but their networks are (IME) more likely to give a hand via couch-surfing and the like. As a person who grew up poor and made it out of the bottom quintile, I can tell you that the number of my poor friends who had the talent and opportunity to do the same but didn't actually do it is probably an order of magnitude larger than the number who did. So why don't they actually make it out? The theory in the article sounds interesting, and I hope to see more research done to test it.
randallsquared 16y ago
Wealthy people (read: almost all HN users) By the metric where almost all HN users count as "wealthy", the US hardly has any poverty at all. I don't know that that's inaccurate, but it's not the usual assumption.
- deleted 16y ago
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- silversmith 16y ago
  Let me put in perspective to you: the median wage (after taxes) is around 10k usd/year here in eastern europe. Currently I make around 15k and am pretty well off. The 25k number mentioned earlier is actually where the salary of average gray 9-5 office rat caps out - to go over that, you either have to run your own business (and be quite sucessful, of at least cut some serious corners) or be truly brilliant at what you do. And even then we are miles ahead of, say, China here. So yeah, US doesnt have that many poor folk.
ryanwaggoner 16y ago
Very few Americans get out of poverty. Social mobility rates are surprisingly small in the United States. The American Everyman is very likely to die in the class into which he was born. Not true: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility#Economic_mobility_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility#Economic_mobi...
- bluedanieru 16y ago
  Moving between quintiles is more frequent in the middle quintiles (2-4) than in the lowest and highest quintiles. Of those in one of the quintiles 2-4 in 1996, approximately 35% stayed in the same quintile; and approximately 22% went up one quintile or down one quintile (moves of more than one quintile are rarer). However, 42% of children born in the bottom quintile are most likely to stay there, and another 42% move up to the second and middle quintile. On the opposite end of the spectrum, 39% of those who were born into the top quintile as children in 1968 are likely to stay there, and 23% end up in the fourth quintile. Children previously from lower-income families had only a 1% chance of having an income that ranks in the top 5%. On the other hand, the children of wealthy families have a 22% chance of reaching the top 5%. According to one study, the income of a person's parents is a great deal more predictive of their own income in the United States than other countries. France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway, and Denmark all have more relative mobility than the US, while only the United Kingdom is shown to have less mobility. It's a point of contention, at any rate.
  - CWuestefeld 16y ago
    However, 42% of children born in the bottom quintile are most likely to stay there, and another 42% move up to the second and middle quintile. In other words, if you're born in the bottom quintile, you probably will not stay there.
    - hapless 16y ago
      This statement is deceptive -- it conflates movement into the second and middle quintiles. The second quintile of American income is still very, very poor: $18k-$35k of household income. The median household is three people, with only one wage earner. (The second quintile of individual, wage-earner, income tops out at less than $25k.) Movement from abject poverty into the second quintile is quite common. (Movement in the other direction is also common.) Going from zero to one wage-earner in a household can make that difference. Moving from destitution up to the middle (3rd) quintile is a much more difficult road.
sanderjd 16y ago
This strikes me as very poignant, and makes me wonder about how we form our networks. Why is it that the wealthy know the wealthy and the poor know the poor? Is it usually as simple as the existing networks of your parents that you are born into and then expand upon? Is it school, either college or high school or those who drop out of high school becoming your network depending on how far you go? Is it the who you work with? Is it out and out classist snobbery? Probably all of these things and more wrapped up in one...
- petervandijck 16y ago
  Family, friends, school, jobs and culture. (Where culture serves to strengthen group ties formed by family, friends, school and jobs.)
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by hapless 16y ago

gthank 16y ago

Re: help networks -> poor people might not have a network that can make a house payment for them, but their networks are (IME) more likely to give a hand via couch-surfing and the like. As a person who grew up poor and made it out of the bottom quintile, I can tell you that the number of my poor friends who had the talent and opportunity to do the same but didn't actually do it is probably an order of magnitude larger than the number who did. So why don't they actually make it out? The theory in the article sounds interesting, and I hope to see more research done to test it.

randallsquared 16y ago

Wealthy people (read: almost all HN users) By the metric where almost all HN users count as "wealthy", the US hardly has any poverty at all. I don't know that that's inaccurate, but it's not the usual assumption.

deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
silversmith 16y ago
Let me put in perspective to you: the median wage (after taxes) is around 10k usd/year here in eastern europe. Currently I make around 15k and am pretty well off. The 25k number mentioned earlier is actually where the salary of average gray 9-5 office rat caps out - to go over that, you either have to run your own business (and be quite sucessful, of at least cut some serious corners) or be truly brilliant at what you do. And even then we are miles ahead of, say, China here. So yeah, US doesnt have that many poor folk.

ryanwaggoner 16y ago

Very few Americans get out of poverty. Social mobility rates are surprisingly small in the United States. The American Everyman is very likely to die in the class into which he was born. Not true: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility#Economic_mobility_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility#Economic_mobi...

bluedanieru 16y ago
Moving between quintiles is more frequent in the middle quintiles (2-4) than in the lowest and highest quintiles. Of those in one of the quintiles 2-4 in 1996, approximately 35% stayed in the same quintile; and approximately 22% went up one quintile or down one quintile (moves of more than one quintile are rarer). However, 42% of children born in the bottom quintile are most likely to stay there, and another 42% move up to the second and middle quintile. On the opposite end of the spectrum, 39% of those who were born into the top quintile as children in 1968 are likely to stay there, and 23% end up in the fourth quintile. Children previously from lower-income families had only a 1% chance of having an income that ranks in the top 5%. On the other hand, the children of wealthy families have a 22% chance of reaching the top 5%. According to one study, the income of a person's parents is a great deal more predictive of their own income in the United States than other countries. France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway, and Denmark all have more relative mobility than the US, while only the United Kingdom is shown to have less mobility. It's a point of contention, at any rate.
- CWuestefeld 16y ago
  However, 42% of children born in the bottom quintile are most likely to stay there, and another 42% move up to the second and middle quintile. In other words, if you're born in the bottom quintile, you probably will not stay there.
  - hapless 16y ago
    This statement is deceptive -- it conflates movement into the second and middle quintiles. The second quintile of American income is still very, very poor: $18k-$35k of household income. The median household is three people, with only one wage earner. (The second quintile of individual, wage-earner, income tops out at less than $25k.) Movement from abject poverty into the second quintile is quite common. (Movement in the other direction is also common.) Going from zero to one wage-earner in a household can make that difference. Moving from destitution up to the middle (3rd) quintile is a much more difficult road.

sanderjd 16y ago

This strikes me as very poignant, and makes me wonder about how we form our networks. Why is it that the wealthy know the wealthy and the poor know the poor? Is it usually as simple as the existing networks of your parents that you are born into and then expand upon? Is it school, either college or high school or those who drop out of high school becoming your network depending on how far you go? Is it the who you work with? Is it out and out classist snobbery? Probably all of these things and more wrapped up in one...

petervandijck 16y ago
Family, friends, school, jobs and culture. (Where culture serves to strengthen group ties formed by family, friends, school and jobs.)
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]