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Escaping Poverty Requires Almost 20 Years with Nearly Nothing Going Wrong
- internetman55 9y agoI'm sure white people do control a lot of jobs or whatever, but I'm still always confused about people talking about white males in tech or techbros etc. when probably 50-75% of my coworkers (F50 tech company) were Asian (note that whites make up 75% of the population and Asians 5% by the 2010-2015 census data i found on wikipedia)
- whichdan 9y agoThat's very anecdotal and a narrow sample size at that.
- gameswithgo 9y ago71% of programmers in the USA are white. However asians are over represented in the field: https://datausa.io/profile/soc/151131/ https://datausa.io/profile/soc/151131/
- throwajay 9y agoso whites are underrepresented, and the data supports the idea that racism isn’t a great explanation. interesting
- cimmanom 9y agoWhen there are more than two groups, Group X can be overrepresented without Group Y being underrepresented.
- thaumasiotes 9y agoThat is certainly true, but the numbers this subthread provides are that whites hold a 75% share of the population and a 71% share of programmers.
- dlhavema 9y agomy experiences must be atypical, because at my recent 3 jobs spanning about 11 years, there has been a vast majority of Asian (Indian, Japanese, Chinese, et ) members on our engineering teams.
- swagtricker 9y agoThere's a definite "corporate culture" bias there in your F50 tech company skewing the other direction. How many of that 50-75% are H1b? If not H1b, how "yes man" is your corporate culture? I've worked in large & small orgs on the West coast over the past 20 years, and I tend to notice that people willing to work in large organizations are culturally or personally conditioned to put up with large org B.S. I've seen a significant tendency of Asian workers to take orders and not ask questions, do not try anything outside of what is expected and perscribed. Large orgs thrive on that crap, small to medium orgs it's a sign of something wrong with you if you're not trying to work outside of your box.
- twoquestions 9y agoCan confirm, my F50 large organization is conformist to a fault. We're super white though, but that reflects the surrounding city (for not-great reasons).
- jiveturkey 9y agoI'm guessing that's anecdotal given the very large range (25% spread) you cite. As a F50 company you might have actual "diversity data" at hand. It'd be interesting to see your actual data. For example, Intel is #47 and in mid-2017 they were only 801 employees away from full representation. From their report: > Full representation means that Intel will be at market availability or higher by 2020 for every employee job category that we track; both technical and non-technical, for women, African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans. At the same time, they state that white males and Asians comprise >90% of mid to senior technical roles. So I take these two facts together to mean that the number of under-represented folks on the market is quite small. Of course you're at 50-75% Asian employee population, because that's representative of the pool you're drawing from.
- internetman55 9y agoI figured the stats would be a bit different since the "IT office" I worked at was majority Asian while some other parts of the business and thus overall numbers might be quite a bit different
- xivzgrev 9y agoI don't think there is a mass conspiracy going on. I do think there are disvirtuous circles going on. Ex one school is located in a bad area over time gets less funding, becomes less attractive, fewer people with means want to send their children there, school gets less funding etc. It's not just rich people who oppose poor people. It's also poor people. Think of the guy who is scraping to get ahead and sees someone he knows totally taking advantage of the system and not working, or is involved in criminal activity. This was a good article on it: https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://www.cracked.com/blog/why-we-cant-stop-hating-poor/&ved=2ahUKEwjd08D42q3aAhUIvlMKHV31CeoQFjABegQIBxAB&usg=AOvVaw39P5_o6d_CBFjSzR2xfhSM https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&url=http://...
- sseveran 9y agoWhere I grew up in Baltimore the problem wasn't the funding of the schools. Indeed, when I was in school Baltimore City spent just a bit less per pupil than Montgomery county which was one of the 10 wealthiest counties in the nation. However the money was spent very differently. So while I would agree that there are real systemic problems I don't think there is any amount of money that could be thrown at Baltimore City that would really change the outcomes in a meaningful way. And that is what makes me the most sad about it.
- aantix 9y agoI’m curious as to spencific differences in purchases?
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- lifeisstillgood 9y agohow can you spend money so differently in one district to another ? Teacher salaries, buildings, books seem to be the likely highest costs wherever you are.
- philipkglass 9y ago
- justherefortart 9y agoThe hardest part is changing people's patterns when they get money (I have this same issue to a lesser degree than my friends that had poorer childhood experiences). That spend it before you lose it thing is really difficult to overcome.
- seymour333 9y agoThis is pretty true. I'm always watching my sister-in-law, who can barely make ends meet, buy stupid shit. Big TV, new furniture that she can barely get credit approval for, clothes that have brands and logos on them that are twice as expensive as plain clothes that are usually better quality. A lot of it looks like compensation for being on the poverty line. Like her self-esteem can't take the hit of buying the sensible items that she needs so she can get ahead. Doesn't realize she's getting in her own way. I think culturally we're taught to have nice things and that becomes the goal instead of acting sensibly and doing the right things. Would probably need a couple of generations of kids who value a healthy savings account and an on-track budget more than whatever shiny things they encounter in the media they consume. That's a tall order
- JAFTEM 9y agoIME growing up on the poverty line and now working as a dev and living comfortably, I get serious guilt trips whenever I spend money I don't need to spend.
- thaumasiotes 9y agoPerhaps this could help explain why you grew up poor and are now living comfortably, while other people grew up poor and are still poor.
- itronitron 9y agoHaving the valuable experience of earning a salary of 15K after graduating from college I very quickly learned to translate any expense into number of hours worked.
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- randyrand 9y agoAs Ben Shapiro likes to say, to move out of poverty you have to do 3 things. 1. graduate high school. 2. get a job. 3. don't have kinds until you are married. If you do those 3 things you will not stay in poverty 99.8% of the time. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdEMw_lDUx0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdEMw_lDUx0 Also, the headline does not ever appear in the article itself. huh?
- throwawaybv8 9y agoWow, it’s so easy! See, poor people? Just get a job, gawd!
- mv4 9y ago... also, don't forget to set some money aside! and don't forget taking advantage of tax deductions!
- awalton 9y ago> If you do those 3 things you will not stay in poverty 99.8% of the time. I know a lot of people in poverty, having come from it myself. I refuse to believe this without a direct citation.
- supreme_sublime 9y agoI believe https://www.brookings.edu/research/work-and-marriage-the-way-to-end-poverty-and-welfare/ https://www.brookings.edu/research/work-and-marriage-the-way... is the research that is being referred to.
- pnutjam 9y agoMight be true over a 50 year span, but you'll probably spend 48 of those years in poverty.
- psyc 9y agoWell, that's nonsense. I meet all 3 criteria, and in spectacular fashion. Yet I've been in and out of comfort and poverty for much of my adult life. And the reason happens to be exactly stated in the article title. You can't make any mistakes or suffer any bad luck or ill health. Really poor people start with nothing, and have nothing to fall back on.
- temp-dude-87844 9y agoThe article is a book teaser for The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy, by Peter Temin at MIT. The central point, he argues, is that the top 20% professional-and-up top crust of American society has enacted structural gatekeeping processes like many years of education, and low minimum wages to systematically repress groups by race. From an economist, this is a surprisingly racial thesis, where a simple economic one would do: close the door on others after they're already in the castle. You can see this play out everywhere, from how 'disruption' pivots to regulatory capture, from how homeowners fiercely guard their property values, and society self-sorts into cohorts of similar income and circumstance. We've seen in recent years with working-class people's backlash against neoliberal ideas of governance and trade, in Europe and the US, that the economics notion that growth creates wealth at all levels, and wealth isn't a zero-sum game, is a perception not widely shared among everyday people. The fact is, most people perceive wealth solely in relative terms: are they better off than their neighbors, or people with similar life circumstances? Or are they plagued by the same anxiety and insecurity as people they always thought of as poorer than them? Race plays into this, sure, but more in terms of shared history or the lack thereof, and of being a convenient visually-obvious indicator for a dimension of difference. The people fighting for the scraps below try to band together along dimensions they find relatable -- similar upbringing, comparable treatment by the same sorts of people, similar biases, similar goals and struggles, and race often correlates with enough difference in these life circumstances to interfere with relatability. Conversely, outside of the upper crust of society, different groups all quest for the same opportunities, where victory of one group is quite often to the economic detriment of another. Simply, every group is trying to keep another out. Those whose families have recently ascended to economic security have a vested interest in keeping large waves of additional risers out, while those competing for opportunities to be upwardly mobile are fighting over limited capacity in education, employment, and housing.
- coldtea 9y ago>From an economist, this is a surprisingly racial thesis, where a simple economic one would do: close the door on others after they're already in the castle. As you yourself admit, race is a very convenient way to help close the door.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- turc1656 9y agoThe first sentence already contains a lie. "A lot of factors have contributed to American inequality: slavery, economic policy, technological change, the power of lobbying, globalization, and so on." Slavery ended more than 150 years ago. To claim that it is a contributing factor to current economic inequality is absurd. Racism and discrimination, sure. But not slavery.
- bigmanwalter 9y agoSlaves had their labour stolen from for hundreds of years and were given no land or other economic basis for them to thrive with. In a competitive landscape, without any capital there is no way to rise. This is also ignoring the fact that slavery does still exist in the prison system. Prisoners are paid almost nothing for their labour, and are charged astronomical prices for essentials such as toothpaste or deodorant.
- coldtea 9y ago>Slavery ended more than 150 years ago. To claim that it is a contributing factor to current economic inequality is absurd. Racism and discrimination, sure. But not slavery. The history of slavery directly fed into racism and discrimination post-abolition into ways that minorities without a past as slaves haven't had to experience. Not only that, but these persons didn't even have a state culture of their own (being owned things and not people, and being forcibly abducted from their own cultures). They had to inhabit a dominant culture created by the norms of others (their owners) and run by them. Their culture was half-adopted from their masters, staff they managed to save from their old countries, and whatever they improvised (under the stern eyes of the whites) here. Besides, 150 years is nothing in historical terms as it relates to the continued impact of something on a population, doubly so for something as impactful as being see (and having to live as) "an inferior class of persons owned by other people". For example the US was founded by religious zealots, and even today, 300+ years later and tons of immigrants from others countries having been added, it very much shows, and is very much a dominant part of the cultural landscape.
- whichdan 9y agoThe lack of multigenerational wealth due to slavery is still a very real and relevant issue.
- lifeisstillgood 9y agoI call this the Michael Caine, Sean Connery and Tom Jones effect. In the 1910s Britain was a viciously divided society - with poverty gaps greater than the US sees now. The Great Depression was somewhat levelling but children born in the East End of London, Glasgow's Gorbals, or the rural poverty of Welsh valleys had desperately worse outcomes than those in the middle classes. (Can you guess where each of the celebrities was born and raised ? :-) Then came a war that threatened to cut off our food supplies (Nazi UBoats sank horrifying tonnage of shipping), and to combat it a simple solution was found cutting through generations of political baggage - rationing. Every citizen got given a minimum set of healthy food (like two eggs a week, a pound of meat etc etc). For some this was government over-reach - for others it was the first time in their lives they had eaten properly. After the war, a Labour government introduced a welfare state that prescribed a minimum amount of food, education, healthcare in an on going fashion. And what did we get 20 years later? We got tall strong good looking actors and singers who came to dominate their niches and did so without the rickkets, malnourishment and disadvantages that had been their older brothers lot. We got similar results in medicine, science and business, with each area finding their own James Bond, drawn from a much wider pool of talent. In short we fed our underclass and turbo charged our growth in the post war period. In my view there is a bottle labelled "nitro" attached to the American Economy that has yet to be turned on. The knob does have razor blades attached to cut whichever politician tries to turn it, but folks, it will be worth it, 20'years from now
- vokep 9y agoInteresting, I must say this makes some sense. On the otherhand I'm quite seriously opposed to wealth redistribution of any kind. While this isn't a major communist situation, it is as you said a welfare state. Historically capitalism is cyclic. Inequality grows over time until people are fed up and the system breaks, and then repeat and things are good for awhile. Perhaps one solution would be purposefully resetting the cycle from time to time. An occasional slight redistribution which gives the necessary boost to those in poverty to have some kind of fighting chance. Its probably a bad idea as most socialistic ones are but eh it sounds interesting, who knows.
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- johnrichardson 9y agoI don't see the word 'IQ' mentioned anywhere in that article. And yet, it's the single biggest determinant of lifetime success. Unfortunately, it's also highly heritable, so environmental interventions have a fairly marginal effect on it.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- pulisse 9y agoUnfortunately, it's also highly heritable, so environmental interventions have a fairly marginal effect on it. (a) The Flynn Effect demonstrates that IQ is quite responsive to environment. (b) The heritability of a trait is not a measure of the degree to which that trait is genetically determined: Highly heritable traits can be environmently malleable. (The heritability of height is 0.8, but nutrition, childhood sickness, etc. have a huge effect on height.) Conversely, traits with low heritability can be strongly determined, genetically. ("Number of eyes" is a trait with low heritability, for example.) (c) The measured heritability of IQ isn't especially high. It's usually found to be in the vicinity of 0.3.
- lazerpants 9y agoRegarding C, isn't that just for children? As I recall it's something like 0.5 or higher for adults.
- johnrichardson 9y agoYou're right. Some studies have found it as high as 85%. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heritability_of_IQ
- f4rker 9y agowhat a load of crap. so many people have escaped poverty in less than 5 years.
- seymour333 9y agoPersonally what I find the most frustrating is finally escaping poverty and getting pushed firmly against an artificial, middle-class, ceiling where it isn't possible to become more financially free because of constant inflation and the choice I made to contribute to society by having a family. Meanwhile productivity and profitability continue to increase
- cletus 9y agoSorry but I have to pick a bone with you about one of your contentions: having children is a choice. Are you contributing to society? At a basic level of course if no one had children we'd cease to exist but at the same time it's also arguable that there are simply too many of us on the planet to support, which shifts having children into a more selfish choice. On a more personal level, I suspect you chose to had kids because you wanted kids. This is fine. But you're not doing this for the good of society. Lastly, in the developed world we WAY overspend on child-rearing. Like... it's ridiculous. It may well be that in the US each child will cost nigh on $1m to raise. That's... ludicrous. But it also comes about from making a bunch of unessential choices (eg private school). Again, if that's what you want to do, fine. But it's another choice.
- Xeoncross 9y ago> there are simply too many of us on the planet to support No, we could easily support 10 times this many people. The problem is that people are "selfish" and will starve, steal, and kill others for power or property. Starvation isn't because of the lack of food or resources - its the governments, rebels, gangs, and guerrilla fighters.
- pizzetta 9y agoOne "hidden" cost of people over replacement numbers is "footprint". The more people the more we encroach upon wilderness. As people gain purchasing power, the more they plug-in to consumerism. It all adds-up to a leger human foot print on the planet.
- soared 9y ago>upper class of FTE workers ... has strategically pushed for policies ...to bolster the economic success of some groups and not others, largely along racial lines > His final recommendation is to address systemic racism Not a good start from Temin. Its not like the entire upper class is outwardly racist like the first quote implies. If you want to reduce racial/class divides, maybe making the upper class appear to be a purposefully racist enemy isn't the best way to go.
- BLanen 9y agoSorry you got so offended. Learn what systemic racism is and how it's not what you got offended by.
- bdcravens 9y ago(anecdotal data point) I grew up in a very poor family. (Like electricity-or-food, owned no car my entire childhood poor) Always had a love for technology, however, and bought my first used computer (old 286) at 18. (1995) Bought my first Windows machine 2 years later. Was always learning and writing code - school machines, graphing calculator, my computer etc. In 1998 got first "tech job" doing phone support for ISP/computer store in little rural town in Oklahoma. Starting doing web sites for them, then learned server-side (ColdFusion), and by early 2000 was doing contract work in Houston at typical rates. Definitely broke out of poverty, and along the way, made some very dumb mistakes (as well as significant medical costs). Still not in poverty. Counterpoints: my aunt's family was middle class and all educators, so I had a great example within arm's reach. I'm also a white male, so don't have some of the social issues that would hindered me otherwise.
- Brockenstein 9y agoPeople who leave high school at 9th grade statistically don't have very good prospects. My last year of school was the 9th grade. I got my GED at 20 (like I walked in off the street and took the tests with no prep or anything), went to college and earned a bachelors in computer science fairly easily. There's always going to be outliers to any case. People who pull off crazy things that only 1 out of 10, 1 out of 100, maybe 1 out of 1,000 could possible do if things went just so for them. Also good for you to recognize some of your advantages and maybe learning better habits from successful people. Not everyone is able to break the cycle and circumstances they're born into. And in either of our cases it's probably wise to be mindful how one event, major enough, could leave us in ruins.
- bdcravens 9y agoWhen I was in high school some circumstances led to a recommendation that I could drop out and start making money. I never for a nanosecond considered that as an option. Obviously that's not a perspective shared by all, and even those who wouldn't choose that may be facing a different reality than I did.
- vinceguidry 9y ago> The MIT economist Peter Temin argues that economic inequality results in two distinct classes. And only one of them has any power. Nobody studies history anymore. This has always been the case, and the ratio of haves to have-nots has only improved with time, as has the quality of life of the have-nots. That ratio may have been a little better in the golden years after WW2 in the USA, but it's still way better now than it ever was before WW2. Modernity truly is the tide that lifted all boats.
- mr_overalls 9y agoFrom the article: > The first are skilled, tech-savvy workers and managers with college degrees and high salaries who are concentrated heavily in fields such as finance, technology, and electronics—hence his labeling it the “FTE sector.” Am I the only one who's wondering why "electronics" is its own category, instead of being lumped under "technology"?
- jpindar 9y agoNowadays, in some circles, the word technology has been redefined to mean "websites". And maaaaybe other software, but that's borderline. So electronics, rockets, robots, lasers, medicine, skyscrapers etc. etc. are no longer considered technology. I hate this so much, but language evolves. What can you do?
- poster123 9y ago"Temin argues that, following decades of growing inequality, America is now left with what is more or less a two-class system: One small, predominantly white upper class that wields a disproportionate share of money, power, and political influence" Temin avoids mentioning Asians, who have a higher average income than whites, despite many being relative newcomers to the country. That would undermine the narrative of a static class structure.
- bilbo0s 9y agoTo be fair, Temin wrote "...predominantly white...", so I would have assumed that meant mostly white, with everyone else in smaller numbers. The fact that asians, or blacks, or native americans or what have you are also included in the top class, does not mean that we don't have a two class system. From where I sit out here in fly over country, (Madison, WI), it definitely does feel like a 2 class system. I think that's what a lot of people, (in Wisconsin anyway), are reacting to when they vote Trump for instance.
- Brockenstein 9y agoHowever when you factor in their level of education, they're still making less than their white (male) peers. >One small, predominantly white upper class that wields a disproportionate share of money, power, and political influence" predominantly... Stop to consider the number of Asians in the U.S., now take the number of Asians that have a higher than average income than Whites. Now take the number of Whites who earn the same average income or greater than our Asian subgroup. You're not convinced that the group of relatively above average income earners is going to be predominantly white? You can look at the demographics in anything that you think qualifies people as upper class. Government, at the state or national level? Upper management at Fortune 500 companies? I mean pick anything and if you find any results that don't reflect predominantly white, and almost certainly predominantly white male I'll be shocked and pleasantly surprised that we've made that much progress. Your point only undermines Temin's narrative if you blithely ignore all the other information.
- BeetleB 9y agoHe mentions it elsewhere: > “In the group that has been here longer, white Americans dominate both the FTE sector and the low-wage sector, while African Americans are located almost entirely in the low-wage sector,” he writes. “In the group of recent immigrants, Asians predominantly entered the FTE sector, while Latino immigrants joined African Americans in the low-wage sector.”
- bigjimslade 9y agoOk the linked article seems to be a short synopsis of a book, one which I did not read nor have intention to. But dear Lord the article was so full of government fluff, obvious and trite blather of what has been tried and failed, over, and over, and over again. It is nothing but why we need government to fix the very problems it created, and makes even worse with its choking regulations, legislation, and self-serving laws. My very own grandfather broke into the roofing business around age 11, growing up in abject poverty. He didn't much care for sitting in a school house. He made a good living eventually, becoming one of the largest employers in town, a respected local businessman who would hire anyone willing to work, and give them a fair shot. Today, though, his life would be completely unable to be lived, legally, anyway. Between the government's silly attempts at paperwork for immigration tracking, taxes, labor laws, minimum wage laws, the list goes on and on and on, it would be impossible. The barriers to entry for the poor but motivated ensure nothing more than the permanent existence of the poor. The article is frankly disgusting in its puerile and obviously wrong insistence that what we need is more of the above.
- supreme_sublime 9y agoIt blows my mind that "low minimum wage" is listed as a reason why minorities don't earn more money. It is well known that increases in minimum wage result in higher unemployment. It is very basic supply/demand. In fact minimum wage laws were originally implemented in the south specifically to price minorities out of the market. [0] It seems utterly nonsensical now to act as if they are some great boon to minorities and will help them rise out of their current collective predicament. The best thing for people with low skills is to allow them to enter the market to gain skills. Pricing them out of the market and legitimate employment pushes them to black markets as there is no legal way to participate in gainful employment. Which will thereby increase incarceration rates and contributes to the problem of fatherless homes, something we all know is a very undesirable outcome. [0] https://nypost.com/2013/09/17/why-racists-love-the-minimum-wage-laws/ https://nypost.com/2013/09/17/why-racists-love-the-minimum-w...
- RickJWagner 9y agoAccording to the non-profit Brookings Institute, there are 3 simple rules to avoid poverty: - At least finish high school - Get a full-time job - Wait until age 21 to get married and have children Of those that follow these 3 rules, only 2% are still in poverty. https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/three-simple-rules-poor-teens-should-follow-to-join-the-middle-class/ https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/three-simple-rules-poor-t...
- RickJWagner 9y agoAccording to the non-profit Brookings Institute, there are 3 keys to avoiding poverty. (Of those that follow these rules, only 2% are in poverty.) - At least finish high school - Get a full-time job - Wait until age 21 to get married and have children We should all be committed to spreading this message. https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/three-simple-rules-poor-teens-should-follow-to-join-the-middle-class/ https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/three-simple-rules-poor-t...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- noetic_techy 9y ago> That’s a 16-year (or longer) plan that, as Temin compellingly observes, can be easily upended. I personally think the entire college level education system needs a do-over. Stop requiring people to get expensive degrees, when a decently accredited micro degree system would work. Who gives a fuck if you're more well rounded coming out of college when you're in massive student loan debt. You just created a giant glass ceiling that keeps the poor who are trying to break through even poorer. A handful of Ivy League Universities should be for the elites and the rest of us should have the option to bypass this system altogether. I'm one of these FTE's, and I look back at my college degree as 30% worth the time, and 70% a waste of time, and all of that time cost me a lot.