6 ms·

"By the age of 3, children from wealthier households hear, on average, about 500,000 encouragements and 80,000 discouragements. The ratio is reversed in househo

by rick888 16y ago

"By the age of 3, children from wealthier households hear, on average, about 500,000 encouragements and 80,000 discouragements. The ratio is reversed in households on welfare." I often wonder how much of it is environmental. Why are the parents poor in the first place? Is this directly related to education? If so, it doesn't surprise me that children of parents that aren't educated (and don't stress education) are affected by this.

yummyfajitas 16y ago
Why are the parents poor in the first place? Because they prefer leisure to work, even if it means they have less money. The poor have a labor force participation rate about 1/3 that of the non-poor (20% vs 65%) and a full time labor force participation rate of about 1/5 that of the non-poor (10% vs 55%). http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2007.pdf http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2007.pdf A significant amount of the extra leisure time is spent watching TV. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm [edit: Hi downmodders, sorry for providing inconvenient facts.]
- raleec 16y ago
  It might help if you explain how a document on the Working poor, relates to someone allegedly preferring leisure to working. It also might help if you explain how a news release on the leisure metrics of employed persons and their families relates to the alleged leisure activities of these straw poor people. There are very hardworking poor people and very lazy rich people, and not just the outliers.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    It might help if you explain how a document on the Working poor, relates to someone allegedly preferring leisure to working. It might help if you read the first paragraph of the document, rather than just the title. As for the leisure metrics, see Table 11. It provides leisure time usage for workers (at various income levels) and non workers. There are very hardworking poor people... And the report I linked to tells you exactly how many there are (about 10%, assuming "hardworking" == full time for 50+weeks/year).
    - raleec 16y ago
      Ok, I'll bite. how does it relate? the number cited does not say how many of the ~30 million are able bodied adults. If you deduct the children, elderly, infirm, graduate students, or people who simply have unreported income, I'm sure the number is a fraction of that figure. And that doesn't even touch on the people who cannot get a job for any number of reasons. So how do you extract any semblance of a number of people who prefer leisure to working? (about 10%, assuming "hardworking" == full time for 50+weeks/year). That is a huge assumption.
      - yummyfajitas 16y ago
        Wait, you want to include people with unreported income among the poor? How do you know that if we were to include the unreported income, they would still be poor? You are correct. I don't have data to answer all your questions, though I do deal with children and the elderly here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2130441 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2130441 Feel free to assume the one set of numbers I am unable to find in 5 minutes of google completely debunks me. After all, all the facts we do not know must support our preconceived notions, right? And that doesn't even touch on the people who cannot get a job for any number of reasons. Again: please read the first paragraph. It explains that "working poor" includes the unemployed (people looking for work, but who have not found it). That is a huge assumption. Please learn the difference between "definition" and "assumption". I don't know how you define "hardworking", so I chose a definition, explained what I meant, and presented facts concerning that definition.
        raleec 16y ago
        I don't want to include people with unreported income, but you are. Your last statement sums up the cognitive dissonance that your argument creates. You are creating your own definition of a word which already has one.[1] If you don't know anyone who is not hardworking, yet has managed to remain employed for at least a year, you're not paying attention. 1.http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=hardworking http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=hardworking
- hristov 16y ago
  Just because they cannot find jobs, does not mean they prefer not having jobs.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    The fact that they are not even looking does, however. Or at the very least, it means they are completely ambivalent about whether they have a job.
    - wazoox 16y ago
      When your choice is between having a shitty job and no job, maybe staying at home simply is the easiest. Or sometimes your choice is working late and letting your children alone, wandering the streets. You apparently still live in the wonderful lalaland, where human beings are perfectly rational and do not suffer from segregation, humiliation and other social problems. I'll suggest that you try to see life from a less privileged person point of view from time to time, instead of the Chicago school of economics only. That may make you a slightly more charitable person.
      - yummyfajitas 16y ago
        Citing facts == "Chicago school of economics only"? You are correct - I did assume poor people avoid work out of rational utility maximization (i.e., I assumed poor people's choices revealed their preferences). You may be right - poverty might be caused by irrationality. I made no claim whatsoever about segregation, humiliation or other social problems. Come to think of it, if the poor are irrational, that might also explain why their children do not become as intelligent as the children of the rich.
        TimJYoung 16y ago
        No one "becomes" intelligent. Intelligence is the capacity for learning and understanding concepts, and a lot of children go on to live their entire lives without getting anywhere near that capacity due to a lack of access to educational opportunities in an environment, both at home and at school, that is conducive to learning and advancing. The fact that we accept this as normal is disgraceful, especially when any one of these children could potentially become the adult that makes a major technological breakthrough that benefits us all.
- michaelchisari 16y ago
  I've seen you regularly bring up these stats, but you never mention that while only 20% are working full time or seeking full time work, 35% are children, which make a disproportionate amount of the poor. That leave 45% for whom it is a matter of leisure, as you say. However, that study doesn't provide information about how much of that 45% is disabled, and how many are elderly, two more groups disproportionately predisposed towards poverty. If you're being downvoted, it's because you keep bringing up a very straight-forward study and drawing a very extreme social conclusion from it.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    You think that the population as a whole does not include children? (They do have slightly fewer, at 25%.) Excluding children, the country as a whole has a FTLFPR (Full Time Labor Force Participation Rate) of 73%. The poor have a FTLFPR of 15%. That's a calculation that took me 2 minutes. If you really cared about facts, you would have done it yourself. But I guess it's safer to raise questions and assume the answers support your views, rather than actually look into the data. ...and how many are elderly, ...disproportionately predisposed towards poverty. Please stop making stuff up. The poverty rate among children is 27%, working age adults is 18%, and the elderly is 14%. http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparebar.jsp?ind=10&cat=1 http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparebar.jsp?ind=10&ca... As for the disabled, if you truly believe that the numbers will contradict my case, why don't you post them? (I'm not going to do all your research for you.)
- strait 16y ago
  It's not as simple as you would like to believe. Lacking social skills and having self-defeating attitudes are much more likely to keep them poor, assuming they are not mentally deficient, than a simple pursuit of leisure over work. Lots of people, rich and poor, prefer leisure to their current work situation, in case you don't know. Some rich people have poor social skills and self-defeating attitudes and somehow manage to stay rich too. But this is more about beginning poor and staying poor. Many poor people are not that happy, feel frustrated, and perhaps watching TV is an easy activity that makes them feel okay.
  - yummyfajitas 16y ago
    I certainly prefer leisure to my current work situation. The universe of possibilities (for most people) is {work+pay, no work+no pay}. Within this universe, I prefer work+pay. You can deduce this based on revealed preferences - I've been either working or looking for work for my entire adult life. Similarly, revealed preferences suggest that most of the poor prefer no work + no pay to work + pay.
- wazoox 16y ago
  > Because they prefer leisure to work, even if it means they have less money. Who takes bus at 4 in the morning to clean the toilets at your office and leave before you arrive at 8? The poor. Who does two different, hard and unfulfilling jobs to make end meet? The poor. Who has to spend 12 hours far from home but is paid only 3 hours? The poor. The poor have it much less easy than you and I, and your self-satisfied condescending attitude is sickening.
  - cookiecaper 16y ago
    It really depends on what easy means here. Poor people might have to work more often and might have less physical comforts or conveniences available, and those things can certainly ease a subset of life's problems, but I wouldn't say that money automatically makes one's whole existence or life easier. I've known several individuals more affluent than myself whose lives, at least in my estimation, are much more difficult. Money can take care of some things, and the things it helps are nice, but I think it's important for us to have some perspective. Wealth comes with its own worries and some of those that don't have these worries ought to be grateful that they don't. Beneath its luster, wealth is often regarded as a destroyer. Think about it: of the the few that are capable of obtaining wealth, fewer still are able to bear it without destroying their own life or the lives of many surrounding. Wealth comes with burdens. Can you bear it?
    - wazoox 16y ago
      > I've known several individuals more affluent than myself whose lives, at least in my estimation, are much more difficult. What are you talking about? This guy takes the false and insulting stance that poor are so because they're lazy (implying they somehow deserve it, somewhat further implying that there is some immanent justice in this world). We should carefully, as usual, avoid anecdotes and concentrate on general trends. The overall figure is that poor people don't choose to be poor, and that they would live better if they weren't. The people who got rich chosed their fate, the fact that they're happy with it or not is largely irrelevant here. That's the difference between being alienated / exploited, or not. These problems are of different scales and call for different remedies.
    - 16y ago
- varjag 16y ago
  Live a few weeks off a janitor job, then we'll see your participation rate.
- foljs 16y ago
  <b>Because they prefer leisure to work, even if it means they have less money. </b> You have never been poor for a day in your entire life, right? Probably never even ventured near the poorest neighborhoods. You couldn't be any more OFF the mark, if you tried to. No, I wouldn't suggest you to go to do some poor man's work, to see how "leisurly" it is, but you can go and read a book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_and_Dimed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_and_Dimed
hristov 16y ago
I suspect a lot of it is environmental. If you get treated like shit during the day, you are likely to be irritable and angry with your family in the evening.
- pyre 16y ago
  As a data point, I remember reading something about there being a link between starting work in a slaughterhouse and increased incidences of domestic violence. I guess it sorta makes sense. If you spend all day killing animals for 8+ hours, it's likely to spill over into your home life.
  - thret 16y ago
    Is there a similar link for surgeons? They spend all day cutting people up.
    - noblethrasher 16y ago
      Cutting people up in surgery probably has a much greater requirement of uniform continuous motion which implies more self control.
    - pyre 16y ago
      Are you trying to claim that attempting (and mostly succeeding) to heal people has the same psychological impact on a person as attempting (and mostly succeeding) to kill a living being? I'd venture that ending a life has significantly more impact than trying to save one, no? When an animal goes into a slaughterhouse, the goal is for them to be killed. When a human goes into a hospital the goal is for them to be healed. I would say that the practitioners in both establishments probably have very different reactions to their jobs.

by rick888 16y ago

yummyfajitas 16y ago

Why are the parents poor in the first place? Because they prefer leisure to work, even if it means they have less money. The poor have a labor force participation rate about 1/3 that of the non-poor (20% vs 65%) and a full time labor force participation rate of about 1/5 that of the non-poor (10% vs 55%). http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2007.pdf http://www.bls.gov/cps/cpswp2007.pdf A significant amount of the extra leisure time is spent watching TV. http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm http://www.bls.gov/news.release/atus.nr0.htm [edit: Hi downmodders, sorry for providing inconvenient facts.]

raleec 16y ago
It might help if you explain how a document on the Working poor, relates to someone allegedly preferring leisure to working. It also might help if you explain how a news release on the leisure metrics of employed persons and their families relates to the alleged leisure activities of these straw poor people. There are very hardworking poor people and very lazy rich people, and not just the outliers.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  It might help if you explain how a document on the Working poor, relates to someone allegedly preferring leisure to working. It might help if you read the first paragraph of the document, rather than just the title. As for the leisure metrics, see Table 11. It provides leisure time usage for workers (at various income levels) and non workers. There are very hardworking poor people... And the report I linked to tells you exactly how many there are (about 10%, assuming "hardworking" == full time for 50+weeks/year).
  - raleec 16y ago
    Ok, I'll bite. how does it relate? the number cited does not say how many of the ~30 million are able bodied adults. If you deduct the children, elderly, infirm, graduate students, or people who simply have unreported income, I'm sure the number is a fraction of that figure. And that doesn't even touch on the people who cannot get a job for any number of reasons. So how do you extract any semblance of a number of people who prefer leisure to working? (about 10%, assuming "hardworking" == full time for 50+weeks/year). That is a huge assumption.
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      Wait, you want to include people with unreported income among the poor? How do you know that if we were to include the unreported income, they would still be poor? You are correct. I don't have data to answer all your questions, though I do deal with children and the elderly here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2130441 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2130441 Feel free to assume the one set of numbers I am unable to find in 5 minutes of google completely debunks me. After all, all the facts we do not know must support our preconceived notions, right? And that doesn't even touch on the people who cannot get a job for any number of reasons. Again: please read the first paragraph. It explains that "working poor" includes the unemployed (people looking for work, but who have not found it). That is a huge assumption. Please learn the difference between "definition" and "assumption". I don't know how you define "hardworking", so I chose a definition, explained what I meant, and presented facts concerning that definition.
      - raleec 16y ago
        I don't want to include people with unreported income, but you are. Your last statement sums up the cognitive dissonance that your argument creates. You are creating your own definition of a word which already has one.[1] If you don't know anyone who is not hardworking, yet has managed to remain employed for at least a year, you're not paying attention. 1.http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=hardworking http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=hardworking
hristov 16y ago
Just because they cannot find jobs, does not mean they prefer not having jobs.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  The fact that they are not even looking does, however. Or at the very least, it means they are completely ambivalent about whether they have a job.
  - wazoox 16y ago
    When your choice is between having a shitty job and no job, maybe staying at home simply is the easiest. Or sometimes your choice is working late and letting your children alone, wandering the streets. You apparently still live in the wonderful lalaland, where human beings are perfectly rational and do not suffer from segregation, humiliation and other social problems. I'll suggest that you try to see life from a less privileged person point of view from time to time, instead of the Chicago school of economics only. That may make you a slightly more charitable person.
    - yummyfajitas 16y ago
      Citing facts == "Chicago school of economics only"? You are correct - I did assume poor people avoid work out of rational utility maximization (i.e., I assumed poor people's choices revealed their preferences). You may be right - poverty might be caused by irrationality. I made no claim whatsoever about segregation, humiliation or other social problems. Come to think of it, if the poor are irrational, that might also explain why their children do not become as intelligent as the children of the rich.
      - TimJYoung 16y ago
        No one "becomes" intelligent. Intelligence is the capacity for learning and understanding concepts, and a lot of children go on to live their entire lives without getting anywhere near that capacity due to a lack of access to educational opportunities in an environment, both at home and at school, that is conducive to learning and advancing. The fact that we accept this as normal is disgraceful, especially when any one of these children could potentially become the adult that makes a major technological breakthrough that benefits us all.
michaelchisari 16y ago
I've seen you regularly bring up these stats, but you never mention that while only 20% are working full time or seeking full time work, 35% are children, which make a disproportionate amount of the poor. That leave 45% for whom it is a matter of leisure, as you say. However, that study doesn't provide information about how much of that 45% is disabled, and how many are elderly, two more groups disproportionately predisposed towards poverty. If you're being downvoted, it's because you keep bringing up a very straight-forward study and drawing a very extreme social conclusion from it.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  You think that the population as a whole does not include children? (They do have slightly fewer, at 25%.) Excluding children, the country as a whole has a FTLFPR (Full Time Labor Force Participation Rate) of 73%. The poor have a FTLFPR of 15%. That's a calculation that took me 2 minutes. If you really cared about facts, you would have done it yourself. But I guess it's safer to raise questions and assume the answers support your views, rather than actually look into the data. ...and how many are elderly, ...disproportionately predisposed towards poverty. Please stop making stuff up. The poverty rate among children is 27%, working age adults is 18%, and the elderly is 14%. http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparebar.jsp?ind=10&cat=1 http://www.statehealthfacts.org/comparebar.jsp?ind=10&ca... As for the disabled, if you truly believe that the numbers will contradict my case, why don't you post them? (I'm not going to do all your research for you.)
strait 16y ago
It's not as simple as you would like to believe. Lacking social skills and having self-defeating attitudes are much more likely to keep them poor, assuming they are not mentally deficient, than a simple pursuit of leisure over work. Lots of people, rich and poor, prefer leisure to their current work situation, in case you don't know. Some rich people have poor social skills and self-defeating attitudes and somehow manage to stay rich too. But this is more about beginning poor and staying poor. Many poor people are not that happy, feel frustrated, and perhaps watching TV is an easy activity that makes them feel okay.
- yummyfajitas 16y ago
  I certainly prefer leisure to my current work situation. The universe of possibilities (for most people) is {work+pay, no work+no pay}. Within this universe, I prefer work+pay. You can deduce this based on revealed preferences - I've been either working or looking for work for my entire adult life. Similarly, revealed preferences suggest that most of the poor prefer no work + no pay to work + pay.
wazoox 16y ago
> Because they prefer leisure to work, even if it means they have less money. Who takes bus at 4 in the morning to clean the toilets at your office and leave before you arrive at 8? The poor. Who does two different, hard and unfulfilling jobs to make end meet? The poor. Who has to spend 12 hours far from home but is paid only 3 hours? The poor. The poor have it much less easy than you and I, and your self-satisfied condescending attitude is sickening.
- cookiecaper 16y ago
  It really depends on what easy means here. Poor people might have to work more often and might have less physical comforts or conveniences available, and those things can certainly ease a subset of life's problems, but I wouldn't say that money automatically makes one's whole existence or life easier. I've known several individuals more affluent than myself whose lives, at least in my estimation, are much more difficult. Money can take care of some things, and the things it helps are nice, but I think it's important for us to have some perspective. Wealth comes with its own worries and some of those that don't have these worries ought to be grateful that they don't. Beneath its luster, wealth is often regarded as a destroyer. Think about it: of the the few that are capable of obtaining wealth, fewer still are able to bear it without destroying their own life or the lives of many surrounding. Wealth comes with burdens. Can you bear it?
  - wazoox 16y ago
    > I've known several individuals more affluent than myself whose lives, at least in my estimation, are much more difficult. What are you talking about? This guy takes the false and insulting stance that poor are so because they're lazy (implying they somehow deserve it, somewhat further implying that there is some immanent justice in this world). We should carefully, as usual, avoid anecdotes and concentrate on general trends. The overall figure is that poor people don't choose to be poor, and that they would live better if they weren't. The people who got rich chosed their fate, the fact that they're happy with it or not is largely irrelevant here. That's the difference between being alienated / exploited, or not. These problems are of different scales and call for different remedies.
  - 16y ago
varjag 16y ago
Live a few weeks off a janitor job, then we'll see your participation rate.
foljs 16y ago
<b>Because they prefer leisure to work, even if it means they have less money. </b> You have never been poor for a day in your entire life, right? Probably never even ventured near the poorest neighborhoods. You couldn't be any more OFF the mark, if you tried to. No, I wouldn't suggest you to go to do some poor man's work, to see how "leisurly" it is, but you can go and read a book: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_and_Dimed http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel_and_Dimed

hristov 16y ago

I suspect a lot of it is environmental. If you get treated like shit during the day, you are likely to be irritable and angry with your family in the evening.

pyre 16y ago
As a data point, I remember reading something about there being a link between starting work in a slaughterhouse and increased incidences of domestic violence. I guess it sorta makes sense. If you spend all day killing animals for 8+ hours, it's likely to spill over into your home life.
- thret 16y ago
  Is there a similar link for surgeons? They spend all day cutting people up.
  - noblethrasher 16y ago
    Cutting people up in surgery probably has a much greater requirement of uniform continuous motion which implies more self control.
  - pyre 16y ago
    Are you trying to claim that attempting (and mostly succeeding) to heal people has the same psychological impact on a person as attempting (and mostly succeeding) to kill a living being? I'd venture that ending a life has significantly more impact than trying to save one, no? When an animal goes into a slaughterhouse, the goal is for them to be killed. When a human goes into a hospital the goal is for them to be healed. I would say that the practitioners in both establishments probably have very different reactions to their jobs.