4 ms·

And how did the top 49% do? A.k.a all of the middle class and above.

ajross 7y ago
The study is of the United States only. I gotta say, I'm seeing a shocking amount of mailed-in right wing defensiveness in this topic, by people who clearly aren't reading the article.
- JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
  The arguments for the conservative lens in this discussion seem pretty weak. "But the 1% of decades ago isn't the same cohort as it is today!", etc. These talking points are untethered from reality. In the past, your economic quintile had respectively less correlation to your parent's income (e.g., where you come from). Today, it's quite sticky [0]. There's much less income mobility than there used to be. It's still possible to break out, but it's much less likely to occur. The strongest argument against this might be "it hasn't gotten worse, but it's always been difficult in the US, compared to other industrialized nations". [1] which still leaves one hard pressed to say the economy works for most people. The lion's share of productivity gains go to capital holders, and metrics like life expectancy have plateaued [2]. [0]: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/rich-kids-stay-rich-poor-kids-stay-poor/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/rich-kids-stay-rich-poo... [1]: https://www.npr.org/2014/01/23/265356290/study-upward-mobility-no-tougher-in-u-s-than-two-decades-ago https://www.npr.org/2014/01/23/265356290/study-upward-mobili... [2]: https://www.google.com/search?q=life+expectancy+us https://www.google.com/search?q=life+expectancy+us
  - brownbat 7y ago
    That "cohorts shift" critique didn't land with me either, until I thought of my own path. Grad school pushed me way below the -$6k median for the bottom quintile.[0] I pulled that quintile's average down for years, but I wasn't in trouble or part of some kind of social problem. To be clear -- I don't mean this as a values critique. I definitely want to help those that haven't had the opportunities to succeed like I have, and support charities and programs that I think will have the most impact. But I still have a methodological quibble. If we want to address poverty, it's important to understand it. For that, we need to separate out the people moving through quintiles due to life stages, and isolate those that are really stuck. I'm not sure the best way to do that. It'd be nice to see this data separated out by age, I guess, that might be one way. [0] https://www.thebalance.com/american-net-worth-by-state-metropolitan-4135839 https://www.thebalance.com/american-net-worth-by-state-metro...
    - ajross 7y ago
      > I [was in the bottom quintile] but I wasn't in trouble or part of some kind of social problem. Yeah. But you were poor. And, on average, absent the social change we're looking at now, you were poorer than you would have expected to be in similar circumstances in 1989. The fact that poverty was tolerable for you doesn't mean that it is for everyone. Would have have been able to support two young children at that level? What if your other support structures (parents, friends, stipend, whatever) failed? What if you weren't living in your middle class university area with nice transportation and had to make do in rural Alabama or central Detroit? I mean... you recognize that to people who are actually poor, a message like "You don't have a problem. I went to grad school!" is outrageously patronizing, right? Dude, empathy.
      - brownbat 7y ago
        Your takeaway was "I don't care about the poor" from a comment where I literally talk about how important it is to help people who didn't have the same opportunities I had. It's _the opposite_ of what I said. All I want is to control for age, or use some other technique to improve the data. Sorry if I laid out that point in a confusing way, maybe this is on me. But saying someone has no empathy is calling them a sociopath. If you're going to lean into personal attacks, don't you at least owe them the common courtesy of re-reading their comment in full to make sure you understand their point?
        ajross 7y ago
        > It's _the opposite_ of what I said. All I want is [...] Then I sincerely apologize. What you wrote sounded like excuse making for why the poor don't really have it so bad and why the inexorably increasing income inequality in our society isn't a problem. If it's not, and you're merely making a dry critique of the analysis... meh. It's still not really helping anyone now, is it? "We need better data" is what climate denialists like to say too.

The study is of the United States only. I gotta say, I'm seeing a shocking amount of mailed-in right wing defensiveness in this topic, by people who clearly aren't reading the article.

JMTQp8lwXL 7y ago
The arguments for the conservative lens in this discussion seem pretty weak. "But the 1% of decades ago isn't the same cohort as it is today!", etc. These talking points are untethered from reality. In the past, your economic quintile had respectively less correlation to your parent's income (e.g., where you come from). Today, it's quite sticky [0]. There's much less income mobility than there used to be. It's still possible to break out, but it's much less likely to occur. The strongest argument against this might be "it hasn't gotten worse, but it's always been difficult in the US, compared to other industrialized nations". [1] which still leaves one hard pressed to say the economy works for most people. The lion's share of productivity gains go to capital holders, and metrics like life expectancy have plateaued [2]. [0]: https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/rich-kids-stay-rich-poor-kids-stay-poor/ https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/rich-kids-stay-rich-poo... [1]: https://www.npr.org/2014/01/23/265356290/study-upward-mobility-no-tougher-in-u-s-than-two-decades-ago https://www.npr.org/2014/01/23/265356290/study-upward-mobili... [2]: https://www.google.com/search?q=life+expectancy+us https://www.google.com/search?q=life+expectancy+us
- brownbat 7y ago
  That "cohorts shift" critique didn't land with me either, until I thought of my own path. Grad school pushed me way below the -$6k median for the bottom quintile.[0] I pulled that quintile's average down for years, but I wasn't in trouble or part of some kind of social problem. To be clear -- I don't mean this as a values critique. I definitely want to help those that haven't had the opportunities to succeed like I have, and support charities and programs that I think will have the most impact. But I still have a methodological quibble. If we want to address poverty, it's important to understand it. For that, we need to separate out the people moving through quintiles due to life stages, and isolate those that are really stuck. I'm not sure the best way to do that. It'd be nice to see this data separated out by age, I guess, that might be one way. [0] https://www.thebalance.com/american-net-worth-by-state-metropolitan-4135839 https://www.thebalance.com/american-net-worth-by-state-metro...
  - ajross 7y ago
    > I [was in the bottom quintile] but I wasn't in trouble or part of some kind of social problem. Yeah. But you were poor. And, on average, absent the social change we're looking at now, you were poorer than you would have expected to be in similar circumstances in 1989. The fact that poverty was tolerable for you doesn't mean that it is for everyone. Would have have been able to support two young children at that level? What if your other support structures (parents, friends, stipend, whatever) failed? What if you weren't living in your middle class university area with nice transportation and had to make do in rural Alabama or central Detroit? I mean... you recognize that to people who are actually poor, a message like "You don't have a problem. I went to grad school!" is outrageously patronizing, right? Dude, empathy.
    - brownbat 7y ago
      Your takeaway was "I don't care about the poor" from a comment where I literally talk about how important it is to help people who didn't have the same opportunities I had. It's _the opposite_ of what I said. All I want is to control for age, or use some other technique to improve the data. Sorry if I laid out that point in a confusing way, maybe this is on me. But saying someone has no empathy is calling them a sociopath. If you're going to lean into personal attacks, don't you at least owe them the common courtesy of re-reading their comment in full to make sure you understand their point?
      - ajross 7y ago
        > It's _the opposite_ of what I said. All I want is [...] Then I sincerely apologize. What you wrote sounded like excuse making for why the poor don't really have it so bad and why the inexorably increasing income inequality in our society isn't a problem. If it's not, and you're merely making a dry critique of the analysis... meh. It's still not really helping anyone now, is it? "We need better data" is what climate denialists like to say too.