My first reaction when these stats were mentioned in class is that they were a bit better than I expected. And then I remembered that talking about quintiles can be a bit misleading (especially for college educated folks who have always worked as professionals). The top quintile begins at just over $100,000--two professional salaries. This is assuming Brookings is measuring quintiles in the usual way. I remember the shock my very smart parents felt when I told them that I had learned that their teacher and nonprofit salaries made them better off than 80% of taxpayers.
I think it would be interesting to see this lego demo with the top 10% and 1% as Picketty talks about. Because I think the American dream isn't just to make enough to support a family and buy a home, but also to have a shot a making it big.
I think this also underlines the importance of race and gender in two different ways. And I hope we get a chance to talk about these factors in the course. Racism is still such a constraining force on social mobility and part of tackling economic justice has to be tackling racial justice.
Gender is interesting here because these are household incomes which means that many, especially many of the higher ones, represent two salaries. During the "golden age" of capitalism families had half of the paid labor. Advances in gender equality may in fact be hiding higher levels of income inequality or stagnation.
I had a similar response to Georgia in that when someone mentioned them in class, I was surprised at how good they were (I was expecting much worse). Even after viewing this video, I was still surprised at how socially mobile America still is. Nobody ever promised that achieving the “American Dream” would be easy. Nobody ever said that increasing your social capital to make more money would be easy. Actually, in my opinion, a big part of the American dream is that it can only be achieved by the most ambitious, hard-working individuals. This means, of course, that not everyone will have the ability or drive to move up. For instance, if you don’t graduate high school, it is easy to see why you would have more trouble than others in moving up in society; your opportunities are limited not because of who you are or where you were born, but because of your education (which the labor market equates to your human capital or productivity). However, if you are willing to work hard and graduate high school and even college, you have a much better chance of moving up. So it was almost inspirational for me to see that 1 in 10 individuals can start at the bottom quintile and make it all the way to the top. This tells me that the “American Dream” is still intact. One can start from the poorest quintile of society and move up if she has the desire and the ability to push herself to get a good education and work hard. Secondly, something that this video did not address is downward mobility. If everyone is moving up, that would mean that some people have to move down. How often does this happen? I would think it would be rarer for someone to be born in the highest quintile and move to the lowest than vice versa. The video makes it seem that achieving the highest quartile is “the best,” and that higher quartiles are “better” than lower ones. So my question is, if the goal is to move everyone up from lower quartiles to higher ones, is this at the expense of moving others from higher quartiles to lower ones? It impossible to have everyone move up without having others move down. Finally, I thought this video made an interesting point about the impact that marriage can have on upward social mobility. It serves to show the power that the institution of marriage still has in modern society. At a time where many view marriage as “outdated” or “unnecessary,” seeing the impact that marriage can have on one’s children’s social mobility presents a strong case for keeping marriage intact in society. In arguing for the relevance of marriage, people often fail to consider the impact it will have on one’s children.
My first reaction when these stats were mentioned in class is that they were a bit better than I expected. And then I remembered that talking about quintiles can be a bit misleading (especially for college educated folks who have always worked as professionals). The top quintile begins at just over $100,000--two professional salaries. This is assuming Brookings is measuring quintiles in the usual way. I remember the shock my very smart parents felt when I told them that I had learned that their teacher and nonprofit salaries made them better off than 80% of taxpayers.
ReplyDeleteI think it would be interesting to see this lego demo with the top 10% and 1% as Picketty talks about. Because I think the American dream isn't just to make enough to support a family and buy a home, but also to have a shot a making it big.
I think this also underlines the importance of race and gender in two different ways. And I hope we get a chance to talk about these factors in the course. Racism is still such a constraining force on social mobility and part of tackling economic justice has to be tackling racial justice.
Gender is interesting here because these are household incomes which means that many, especially many of the higher ones, represent two salaries. During the "golden age" of capitalism families had half of the paid labor. Advances in gender equality may in fact be hiding higher levels of income inequality or stagnation.
I had a similar response to Georgia in that when someone mentioned them in class, I was surprised at how good they were (I was expecting much worse). Even after viewing this video, I was still surprised at how socially mobile America still is. Nobody ever promised that achieving the “American Dream” would be easy. Nobody ever said that increasing your social capital to make more money would be easy. Actually, in my opinion, a big part of the American dream is that it can only be achieved by the most ambitious, hard-working individuals. This means, of course, that not everyone will have the ability or drive to move up. For instance, if you don’t graduate high school, it is easy to see why you would have more trouble than others in moving up in society; your opportunities are limited not because of who you are or where you were born, but because of your education (which the labor market equates to your human capital or productivity). However, if you are willing to work hard and graduate high school and even college, you have a much better chance of moving up. So it was almost inspirational for me to see that 1 in 10 individuals can start at the bottom quintile and make it all the way to the top. This tells me that the “American Dream” is still intact. One can start from the poorest quintile of society and move up if she has the desire and the ability to push herself to get a good education and work hard.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, something that this video did not address is downward mobility. If everyone is moving up, that would mean that some people have to move down. How often does this happen? I would think it would be rarer for someone to be born in the highest quintile and move to the lowest than vice versa. The video makes it seem that achieving the highest quartile is “the best,” and that higher quartiles are “better” than lower ones. So my question is, if the goal is to move everyone up from lower quartiles to higher ones, is this at the expense of moving others from higher quartiles to lower ones? It impossible to have everyone move up without having others move down.
Finally, I thought this video made an interesting point about the impact that marriage can have on upward social mobility. It serves to show the power that the institution of marriage still has in modern society. At a time where many view marriage as “outdated” or “unnecessary,” seeing the impact that marriage can have on one’s children’s social mobility presents a strong case for keeping marriage intact in society. In arguing for the relevance of marriage, people often fail to consider the impact it will have on one’s children.