Re:Born Poor? Santa Fe economist Samuel Bowles says you bet...
by jbooth on Friday February 05, 2010 @08:08PM
(#1105446)
I wasn't saying they categorically prevent it -- I was saying they make it much less likely.
Let's go back to my safeway example. If I don't grow up in an environment where it's assumed I'm going to be college-track, I probably work at safeway. Working hard isn't all I need at that point -- my ceiling is "shift supervisor".
I'm a big fan of the outlier theory or the "2% theory" as I used to call it, 2% of people tend to make their own destiny, you put them anywhere and they'll become ambitious and try to do things. Most people don't, including most people who aren't in poverty. How many friends do you have who went to law school because, "I dunno, I'm not gonna work at Safeway the rest of my life?"
If you and I work full time, we both work harder than 90% of the poor. 80% of the poor spent less than 27 weeks working or searching for a job in 2008. Another 10% of them worked only part time for more than 27 weeks/year. Less than 10% of the poor either worked or searched for full time work for 50 weeks/year. (See my previous citation.)
But they're an extremely self-selecting group. That's not "average".
So basically, you are saying a group of people who are self-selected to be hardworking and show initiative [1] can break out of poverty? And they do this in spite of having low income, little access to credit/finance/consumer banking, a quality education, or even the ability to speak english?
That pretty much proves that low income, little access to consumer finance and lack of a quality education do not prevent a hardworking person from breaking out of poverty. This is evidence for my hypothesis, not yours.
[1] In some cases, they are simply self-selected to be fast runners, good at hiding, or other such non-marketable skills. See, e.g., Vietnamese, Somalian or Igbo refugees, all of whom exhibit greater income mobility than poor Americans.