The Ivy League Was Another Planet

Re:The Ivy League Was Another Planet by mindcrime on Sunday March 31, 2013 @01:43PM (#5469419)

It's also why there's almost no upward social mobility in the US.

What's your basis for claiming that? It doesn't jibe with available data. See:

http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-viewpoint/011110-51...

http://www.creators.com/opinion/thomas-sowell/dangerous-dema...

http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/Documents...

Quote:

    The key findings of this study include:
    There was considerable income mobility of individuals 
    in the U.S. economy during the 1996 through 2005 period 
    as over half of taxpayers moved to a different income
    quintile over this period.
    Roughly half of taxpayers who began in the bottom 
    income quintile in 1996 moved
    up to a higher income group by 2005.
    Among those with the very highest incomes in 1996 – the 
    top 1/100 of 1 percent –
    only 25 percent remained in this group in 2005.     
    Moreover, the median real income of
    these taxpayers declined over this period.
    The degree of mobility among income groups is unchanged 
    from the prior decade (1987 through 1996).
    Economic growth resulted in rising incomes for most    
    taxpayers over the period from 1996 to 2005. Median 
    incomes of all taxpayers increased by 24 percent after
    adjusting for inflation. The real incomes of two-thirds 
    of all taxpayers increased over this period. In 
    addition, the median incomes of those initially in the 
    lower income groups increased more than the median 
    incomes of those initially in the higher income groups.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Ivy League Was Another Planet by viscanti on Sunday March 31, 2013 @09:08PM (#5470908)

In almost all discussions of social mobility, the measure is intergenerational mobility (do you end up in the same socioeconomic class as your parents), not if you made more later in your career than when you started. Almost everyone makes more later in their career than when they started, that's not a sign of upward social mobility (at least not on an intergenerational level).

For some reason, you cherry picked the one study that looked at all incomes in one of the most prosperous periods in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-economic_mobility_in_the... does a good job of summarizing a number of studies that show that the US ranks as one of the least socially mobile countries in the world.

No one is arguing that people make the same amount their entire career. That's not what social mobility is. The fact is, the US has one of the lowest levels of intergenerational social mobility, and that exceptions to the rule are held up as evidence of The American Dream in action. It's not impossible to end up better off than your parents (in relative inflation adjusted terms), but that's the exception, and it's usually due much more to luck than hard work. Millions of americans work hard and end up exactly where their parents were.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Ivy League Was Another Planet by mindcrime on Monday April 01, 2013 @11:09AM (#5473489)

All I'm saying is that a claim that "there is almost no social mobility in the US" is not backed up by the data. I'm not saying "everything is fine" or that we shouldn't do things to improve the situation.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Ivy League Was Another Planet by viscanti on Monday April 01, 2013 @12:01PM (#5473858)

You're saying that because most people make more money later in their career that the US doesn't have an issue with upward social mobility. That comes from a fundamentally flawed notion you have of what everyone else means when they say social mobility.

The fact is, most people end up in the same socioeconomic class as their parents. There are exceptions to the rule, but upward social mobility happens so infrequently in the US, that it's perfectly reasonable to model that as almost never happening. It's not impossible, it just almost never happens. The bigger problem is that the few counterexamples are used as anecdotal evidence to say "if everyone else would have just tried as hard, they'd be better off too". That's simply not true.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:The Ivy League Was Another Planet by mindcrime on Monday April 01, 2013 @07:32PM (#5476645)

You're saying that because most people make more money later in their career that the US doesn't have an issue with upward social mobility.

No, that's not what I'm saying at all. But you seem determined to intentionally misinterpret what I'm saying, and this conversation isn't doing anything to benefit me, so I'm bowing out.

[ Parent | on HN ]