Sunday, May 11, 2014

American income immobility

http://www.msnbc.com/sites/msnbc/files/styles/embedded_image/public/042914-income-mobility_chart2.png?itok=K9i7IFcR



 Frm MSNBC by way of The Big Picture

042914-income-mobility_chart2.png (PNG Image, 760 × 428 pixels)

15 comments:

  1. It's not a comforting chart. It says that one will usually stay in which ever percentile she was was born into. This defeats the American notion that money will make you rich. How can America enforce this ideal when people in its own country cannot do it?

    That is the difference between reality and the ideal.

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  2. This is not surprising to me. It makes sense that those born into wealth are more likely to have a higher income as opposed to those born into the lower quantiles. However, even the lowest quantile has a 4% chance according to this chart of being in the top quantile. Work hard, and make some things happen for yourself.

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  4. Jacob, if there's a person in a wheelchair racing Usain Bolt in a 100 meter, do you think it's really going to matter how hard the person in the wheelchair tries? I bring this example up because the economic "race" in the United States is very similar in terms of how bad the cards are stacked against you. As this graph shows, economic outcomes in the United States can pretty much be modeled as a function of the conditions you're born into. I suspect that even your ability to "work hard" is largely a function of these initial conditions.

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  5. One frequently overlooked factor in the "initial conditions" is that of the networking capabilities/ challenges faced by members of the upper/ lower income communities.

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  6. Nick, I definitely agree with you there. A lot of the times its not about what you know, its who you know. Working for the CCPD last year made me realize how important it is to establish connections in the workforce.

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  7. I agree that networking is very important, but in the end I think it all goes back to education. From an early age, those individuals that come from the lower quintiles do not have anywhere near the quality of resources and educators that the more well-off students do.

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  8. this graph is a visual representation of the economic and social flaws of the current economic system. i agree with hikaru and would like to add it is not only the socioeconomic status but race, education status, access to resources and other such demographics that make it hard for the hardworking individuals/class to get to the top. these are all interconnect factors that work in multidimensional ways to stump mobility and progress for the bottom to middle quintiles in society.

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  9. Definitely something should be done about this and I agree with the fact that it is not only our economic situation, but other factors are also likely to play an important role (let's just remember our conversation about growing up with only one parent).

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  10. I agree that there are many factors that combine to make it very difficult for most people to move up the socioeconomic ladder. I wonder what comparable statistics from, say, the 1950s or 1960s would look like. I imagine that the 4% on the top left of the figure would be a larger number.

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  11. I agree the race is not fair. But if we look at it this chart little differently then the 57% of the bottom percent were able to move into next quintile. A good majority of them have even moved to middle and the fourth quinitile. Lets not consider about moving into the the fifth quantile and how we should deal with it. Still there is an incentive to move forward. We might definitely be up with Bolt's in the race but that doesn't mean we have to come first. We should give it at least our best shot. There is incentive to improve for everyone even though we might not be equipped with the best resources. Try to be in better quintile than your parents and then the future generation will have better resources.

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  12. Parents in second, third, and fourth quantile are almost equally likely to have children in the fourth quantile. Am I right to say that there is hope in helping as many children of bottom quintile parents get into the second quantile as possible so that more mobility will take place from there? Its like compared to helping a small no. of individuals to get from the bottom to the top quintile, the net benefit may be larger if policies are focused on getting more of those at the bottom into the second quintile.

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  13. There are a number of ways to read this chart which give a variety of results--heartening and dismaying.

    For example, if you look at the bottom three quintiles, you can see that the overwhelming majority of children born to these quintiles will not be anything better than middle class by adulthood. On the other hand, if you look at the middle quintile in isolation, you see that nearly half of children born to this class will rise to at least the next higher quintile, and two-thirds of the children born to this class will maintain their class standing or better.

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