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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 quinti

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.

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.