Causes of U.S. Income Inequality

Off Topic Politics & World Issues
1

Essentially, it’s the inability to achieve higher levels of education.

Here’s the latest and greatest economic paper:

http://client.norc.org/jole/SOLEweb/886.pdf

Thesis:

We examine changes in the characteristics of American youth between the late 1970s and the late 1990s, with a focus on characteristics that matter for labor market success. We reweight the NLSY79 to look like the NLSY97 along a number of dimensions that are related to labor market success, including race, gender, parental background, education, test scores, and variables that capture whether individuals transition smoothly from school to work. We then use the re-weighted sample to examine how changes in the distribution of observable skills affect employment and wages. We also use more standard regression methods to assess the labor market consequences of differences between the two cohorts. Overall, we find that the current generation is more skilled than the previous one. Blacks and Hispanics have gained relative to whites and women have gained relative to men. However, skill differences within groups have increased considerably and in aggregate the skill distribution has widened. Changes in parental education seem to generate many of the observed changes. (bolding and underlining added by me)

The problems with lower income stagnation do not arise fundamentally from trade, discrimination, weak labor unions, or even displacing technical technical change.

Less educated people do worse. The unstated implication is that a large part of the drag that keeps average wages down is the sticky bottom level of unskilled people - and of course, adding more unskilled people each year via immigration, both illegal and legal (since we favor family reunification over skills in our immigration policy) only exacerbates the effect and increases the competition for provision of unskilled labor.

To put it another way - it’s not the hedge fund guys at the top causing the problem. (And at any rate, I’m sure the top fell down a few rungs lately - I’m sure that will make the class-envy crowd on the Democratic side quite pleased.)

2

Higher education or not, nobody who works their ass off is on welfare, period.

3

Adopting middle class values is a key to success, for poor people. To the extent that people celebrate ghetto cultures (think Kwanzaa) and cultures that are anti-logic and anti-capitalist, that’s a major cause of income inequality. Think of Pastor Wright.

Another is the evolution of the American economy — unskilled labour is going to get less and less of the pie. Labour exploited capital for many years and thus spurred its own demise.

Markets generally reward THINKING and not how well someone knows the latest lyrics from some insane rapper’s latest hit.

4

Well, the capitalist does higher the illegal unskilled laborer. Supply and demand.

5

You will not be poor if you:

Graduate high school.
Don’t become addicted to drugs or booze.
Don’t have children until you complete HS and are married.

If you work hard and put more effort into improving your skills and education and then apply those skills you will move up the economic ladder rather efficiently.

Instill a work ethic and set a good example and your kids will do even better. Government can’t guarantee the outcome only the opportunity.

6

Wealth is directly proportional to one’s ability to produce.

The higher up one is in the productive chain the wealthier one will be; for example, owning the means of production versus working on the a factory floor.

7

Wait…I thought you needed money to achieve higher levels of education in the States.

8

[quote]lixy wrote:
Wait…I thought you needed money to achieve higher levels of education in the States.[/quote]

Through high school is free (to the student). You can do 2 years at a CC very cheaply, then finish the degree at an in-state university relatively inexpensively (again, to the student). In-state graduate education is also relatively affordable. You won’t get Harvard cheaply, but you can achieve very high levels of education at a cost far below the benefits if you stick with public universities and plan well.

I’d recommend living in California or Virginia to get the best options, but an eighteen-year old from another state could move to a better education state and do the CC thing while establishing in-state residency.

9

[quote]LIFTICVSMAXIMVS wrote:
Wealth is directly proportional to one’s ability to produce.

The higher up one is in the productive chain the wealthier one will be; for example, owning the means of production versus working on the a factory floor.[/quote]

True - and more education is correlated with higher productivity, which explains why employers are willing to reward its attainment with higher wages.

10

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
lixy wrote:
Wait…I thought you needed money to achieve higher levels of education in the States.

Through high school is free (to the student). You can do 2 years at a CC very cheaply, then finish the degree at an in-state university relatively inexpensively (again, to the student). In-state graduate education is also relatively affordable. You won’t get Harvard cheaply, but you can achieve very high levels of education at a cost far below the benefits if you stick with public universities and plan well.

I’d recommend living in California or Virginia to get the best options, but an eighteen-year old from another state could move to a better education state and do the CC thing while establishing in-state residency.[/quote]

Don’t you think I know that?

Look, the point was that the inequalities in the US are broader than elsewhere because of the educational system that disadvantages the poor. At least, relatively to other developed countries.

11

[quote]lixy wrote:
Look, the point was that the inequalities in the US are broader than elsewhere because of the educational system that disadvantages the poor. At least, relatively to other developed countries.[/quote]

Bullshit.

How many nights have you spent in the US?

That’s what I thought.

Higher education is easier than ever to obtain. It is not free, but if you want it bad enough, you can find a way.

I should know better than some fucking idiot who gets her information from the fucking internet.

12

No lixy, those same people have an equal opportunity. CC is pretty much free unless you or your parents make good money. Yet I see these same people sign up for a Pell grant and receive 4K for school, yet they fail to show up and use there money for other things.
Inequalities is a poor excuse, at least in today’s America.

13

By the way my Cousin came from the poorest of the poor, we all lived together 3 families in Apts. in a slum neighborhood. Guess what?

He is at ND university in the Architecture Dept. his 3rd yr. All his school is paid for by Scholarships and Grants, almost 50k a year. Why? Because he worked for it, he studied and did not make excuses that he came from a less to do family, or inequality. Yes he is a minority if you care to know lixy.

14

[quote]lixy wrote:
Don’t you think I know that?

Look, the point was that the inequalities in the US are broader than elsewhere because of the educational system that disadvantages the poor. At least, relatively to other developed countries.[/quote]

Or perhaps from our large-scale immigration of poor, unskilled people.

Think of it as standing in a queue. If people are getting in the back of the queue faster than it moves, it might be progressing, but the people at the end are further from the front than the people who had previously been at the end. (I know this is an imperfect analogy, but it works for the limited purpose of this illustration)

15

[quote]rainjack wrote:
How many nights have you spent in the US? [/quote]

I don’t recall the exact number, but it was over two months.

16

[quote]BostonBarrister wrote:
lixy wrote:
Don’t you think I know that?

Look, the point was that the inequalities in the US are broader than elsewhere because of the educational system that disadvantages the poor. At least, relatively to other developed countries.

Or perhaps from our large-scale immigration of poor, unskilled people.

Think of it as standing in a queue. If people are getting in the back of the queue faster than it moves, it might be progressing, but the people at the end are further from the front than the people who had previously been at the end. (I know this is an imperfect analogy, but it works for the limited purpose of this illustration)[/quote]

I sure never saw it from this perspective. If what you’re saying is true, tt then seems logical to restrict immigration and only let in people with “higher levels of education” as you put it. That is, if you’re interested in a homogeneous society.

17

Heh. As long as you don’t drop out of high school, or sleep through it, you can make your way through college.

18

[quote]

lixy wrote:
Don’t you think I know that?

Look, the point was that the inequalities in the US are broader than elsewhere because of the educational system that disadvantages the poor. At least, relatively to other developed countries.

BostonBarrister wrote:
Or perhaps from our large-scale immigration of poor, unskilled people.

Think of it as standing in a queue. If people are getting in the back of the queue faster than it moves, it might be progressing, but the people at the end are further from the front than the people who had previously been at the end. (I know this is an imperfect analogy, but it works for the limited purpose of this illustration)

lixy wrote:
I sure never saw it from this perspective. If what you’re saying is true, tt then seems logical to restrict immigration and only let in people with “higher levels of education” as you put it. That is, if you’re interested in a homogeneous society.[/quote]

We should change our immigration-law preferences away from any family unification beyond dependents and spouses, and toward preferring skilled/educated people of any hue or culture. If by homogeneous (and I assume you mean “more homogeneous”) you mean increasing the average intelligence and productivity of the country, then yes.

19

[quote]Don’t you think I know that?

Look, the point was that the inequalities in the US are broader than elsewhere because of the educational system that disadvantages the poor. At least, relatively to other developed countries.[/quote]

You can pay for the cost of a full load at CC in pay check of manual labor, or 2-3 paychecks of minimum wage labor.

All highly accessible jobs.

Grants, are given loans are given, and CC has 0 entrance requirements except for literacy.

You don’t even need to take standardized testing.

Private schools are urged by the government to give scholarships to CC grads, and you are capable of completing half your degree there.

A credit at CC costs about 70 dollars.

From CC you can get into a Private University of 40-50k dollars a year for a fraction of the cost, and get student loans.

A state school costs 10k a year but has truckloads of financial aid if you need it.

Student loans are widely available.

You don’t even have to graduate high school to go to CC, you could have flunked every class in your high school and gotten addicted to heroin and still go.

Ya, our education probably isn’t as accessible as those in Europe or even South America but…I’ve been to Bolivia, my cousin went to a state university and got his degree as a lawyer and works as a cab driver for less than 250 a month.

Tell me a lawyer in the USA, who would end up as a cabby?

Our degrees are more valuable than those of other countries.

In Europe most 4 year schools are community college quality.

I think it costs more because it is worth more.

20

[quote]Sikkario wrote:
In Europe most 4 year schools are community college quality.
[/quote]

Wha-aaaa? What world do you live in?

While Ivy League universities remain the gold standard, European public schools knock the pants out of any community college. Geez…