Asymmetrical Information

Quibble: A lot more than 1% of middle class married couples have more than 2 children. I, for one, think this is a good thing.

I can't provide a source, but I seem to recall reading that there is a huge wage gap between men and women with GEDs. The reason was that most men earning GEDs do so from prison; most women who earn GEDs do so because they dropped out of HS following a pregnancy. The former has a much greater wage-depressing effect than the latter.

Jane - This is not a quibble nor a disagreement with what you said; it's simply prompted by what you said. I tend to be conservative in my views, yet I don't think I'm "better" than those who are less fortunate than I have been. (Nor do I think I am "worse" than those who are more fortunate than I ever hope to be.) I know that much of my financial success can be attributed to good fortune and that, without that luck, I would not have been as successful -- despite all my hard work and good decisions. Not a lot of chest thumping is inspired by that understanding!

That does not mean I don't think there is a significant moral component to poverty, because I do. It's just that, like most things, a certain amount of humility is required if one is to adopt new behaviors. If someone thinks it's their divine right to have a new TV, telling them the TV exceeds their budget will do little good. If sex outside of marriage is celebrated by society, good luck teaching the poor to keep their legs crossed!

This moral element to poverty is one of the reasons governmental aide to the poor helps to lock the poor into poverty. If the government provides it, it's yours by RIGHT. You don't need to thank anybody -- or be humble for having received -- something you have a right to receive. What was the attitude of many of the poor when the National Guard arrived into New Orleans? "What the f*** took you so long?" Not, "Thank you for risking your life to come and help me." No. "The National Guard are public servants paid for with tax dollars and I've a right to receive their help -- and they'd better be quick about it!" Someone with an attitude like that will have a hard time being humble enough to adopt the behaviors necessary to get out of poverty.

When I was in college, I was poor, but I ate a can of peas for dinner, worked out every night and walked to school!

;-) Just getting in the thread early.

One of the best thing I have seen you do.

I suspect the main reason people with a GED do worse is the wasted years.

someone with a high school diploma got it at 18
and built on it over the follwing years.

But the typical person with a GED has wasted years and is starting out far behind the competition.

*Wow* Its just like time travel. If I close my eye and listen to what you say, I can this eerily realistic feeling of being in 18 century France, listening to a meeting of the Hellfire club.

No sound of tumbrels, though. Well, not yet, anyhow. Gotta have faith in the inevitability of history.

Lets take a look around, in my neighborhood, back in the 21st century.

Couple of doors down, theres a CTA bus driver. He has a beautiful 3 year old daughter. born brain damaged. His wife quit her job as a bank teller to take care of her. They are selling their little house now, to pay the medical bills with what little equity they can recover.

Across the street, theres a middle aged man, just sitting in his backyard. He had a good job, lost it in the recession. His wife left him, taking his two children, not because she didn't love him, but because that was all her parents could support. He can't get another job, even though he is skilled, employers don't hire people his age and Gods knows Bobblehead Chou's labor department makes FEMA look efficient.

Lets try a little time travel again. December 9th, 2002. Another middle aged man lies on the floor of his apartment, his pet cat cradled in his arms. Also lost his job in the recession. His cat looks up at him, meows horribly, and dies. He lays there for two days, not crying. You see there was no money to pay for a veterinarian, even to put her to sleep.

Lets jump around again. Lennie is a middle aged black woman, scraping out a living selling things in a little flea market on the south side of Chicago. A kind woman, she helped others even when she had nothing herself, even taking in some street children when they had no where else to go. Right now, she is sitting on the couch, her teenaged daughters arms around her. They had just been reunited after her daughter had ran away for several years. Well, not exactly ran away. been abused by a street gang, repeatedly, for a very long time.

Those are all true stories. I could tell many more, but I think I have made my point.

There is only one more thing left to say. I don't wish you ill for your remarks, its obvious that living with that cesspool inside you is far worse than all the terrors of poverty and illness combined.

randyjg2(at)yahoo.com (your blog software won't take an email address with a "2" in it.)

Jane writes:

"But conservatives tend to take a moralistic stance towards poverty that radically underestimates how much cultural context determines our ability to make good decisions."

Response:

Some do, some don't. Liberals tend to take a moralistic view of events, too, and so, apparently, do some libertarians. In point of fact, Jane's four behaviors seem plainly grounded in some kind of a moral/ethical/personal responsibility blend. Certainly, they are not value-free. So, what does that say about cultural context? That the involved culture(s) lack the right values?

Jane then concludes, in part, with:

"That leaves us in a rather awkward place, because while I don't agree with conservatives that the poor are somehow worse people than we are, I also don't agree with liberals that money is the answer."

Aside from an uncharacteristically sloppy and gross over-generalization, I am fairly sure Jane is wrong in her indictment of conservatives, period, notwithstanding that some people who are socially and religiously conservative are also cruelly judgmental and paint with the same broad brush that Jane does here. Likewise, many past posters on this site from the left are equally cruel and judgmental and use the flip side of the same brush.

Most conservatives I know--and many liberals as well--believe that children grow up to be productive or non-productive, good or bad, etc., based in large part on how they were raised. These people also expect that children who grow up without guidance and without a sense of self and a sense of responsibility tend to repeat a cycle started before they were born.

What bothers conservatives, at least the ones I know, is the relative silence from 'national' and 'community' leaders with apparent sway in the affected communities. There is no chorus, loud and long, exhorting the poor--specifically poor minorities--on the moral/social imperative of taking responsibility for raising their children and to instill in them a desire and an understanding about the need for a good education, a strong work ethic and a regard for being a law abiding citizen. The refrain tends more toward pointing outward in excusing behaviors that, unless the cycle is dramatically broken, will repeat endlessly.

I expect to get the usual harpoons about closet racism, insensitivity, the legacy of slavery, etc. My extended social circle would find that pretty laughable, but that is an aside. I make no apologies for the plain fact that unless and until the economic underclass adopts, at a minimum, Jane's four behaviors and their underlying value system, there is nothing government or others can do to materially improve their lot.
To pour a bit more gas on the fire, this business of ascribing the vilest racist motives to those who expect poor minorities to play the lead role in improving their lives by making the sustained physical and mental effort to do so simply drive an even deeper wedge between those with the financial wherewithal to make a difference, in the form of scholarships, job training, mentoring, and taxes for public education, and those who would benefit from that wherewithal.

To put it differently, I am willing to pay my share of the freight in breaking the poverty cycle provided (1) those in need of assistance do their part and (2) I am not constantly vilified for requiring that they do so.

There's a fair amount of truth to what is being said here. Thought my story might be interesting.

I grew up extremely poor - rural south, no running water, welfare, both parents working multiple jobs to keep the cars running to get to the jobs. Typical causes - Mom had me too early, dad was a bit of a loser with a drug problem.

I had the advantage of being a nerd - loved to read and tinker with things. Lied my way in to a neighboring town's highschool (the local one wasn't even accredited at the time, football coach teaching history, etc). Did well, loved math, got into an Ivy on heavy scholarships. Dropped out after 1 year because I simply couldn't relate to the people.

Moved to the bay area, got involved with the computer industry, and did well. I was one of those dot.commies people make fun of - was making $100K before I was 30. Then of course, it all fell apart, and because I had poor money management skills, only had about a year's worth of living expenses in the bank. My fiance was upper-middle class, and we had a fairly expensive lifestyle (slightly above average by Bay Area standards, very nice by national standards). So, of course I couldn't find a job much above Starbucks (the computer industry around then was brutal there), she left me, and I had to flee.

Moved to NYC and am now 2 years into running a software development company with two friends I knew in high school who were here. We're doing OK now. I could make double what I currently do if I took a corporate job, but I'd rather work for myself.

Takeaways: of course culture matters. Another big one, though, at least in my case, is this: growing up seriously poor causes cut-and-run behavior. I watched my parents do it - in a crisis, bail on everything. I've done it twice when it seriously hurt me (obviously in college, and I think leaving SF was a mistake - I walked away from 10 years of contacts).

I still feel the urge frequently now when a stress reation hits me. A poor quarter or a fight with a partner (the business is basically my entire life right now) and I want to yell "f*ck it" and walk away.

One aspect of that, I think, is the crushing feeling of being unable to change a bad situation when you're broke and going in to more debt becomes associated with other problem solving reactions - the "freedom" of decalaring bankrupcy when you have no real alternative, or of moving across the country to escape a failed relationship and going broke, begins to seem a viable way of escaping other types of problems.

So, any sort of planning one can do frequently becomes something one abandons in times of stress. And when you've got nothing, there's a lot of stress. It keeps you really scattered and short termist.

In many ways I feel rather lucky - Hell, I can afford to live in a loft in Brooklyn, I pulled things together enough to stumble through bootstrapping a company from nothing that, if not a huge success, at least keeps me marginally comfortable, I don't have to be a corporate coder in a cube, etc. But the deeper cultural issues and poor reactions don't go away - you have to learn to live with them.

Anyway, I started rambling. Just wanted to contribute my perspective as a bit of a straddler - I live in your world, but I'm not from it and will probably never really be comfortable here.

Nicely put! When I think of all the silly things I engaged in because of in-group peer pressure during my high school years, I shudder to consider how easily I could have seriously messed up my life had my group of peers been more aimless or malicious.

"There is only one more thing left to say. I don't wish you ill for your remarks, its obvious that living with that cesspool inside you is far worse than all the terrors of poverty and illness combined."

Randy, what a gratuitous cheap shot. I suggest there are two more things to say: Hey Jane, I'm sorry I stooped to such lows in the end of an otherwise interesting post. I apologize.

Does she cover all situations? No. But she would admit it, I'm sure. She knows the heartbreaking cases you site exist, but she would argue that they are "at the margins." You need to explain why this isn't the case, not go for the low blow.

In the meantime, you can apologize.

So Randy, you know a few people who are poor due to bad luck and circumstances, so that means ALL poor people are poor because of that? Never, ever because of their own decisions/peer pressure/bad culture, etc.? You point fingers yet you really need to look in the mirror.

I guess I could "prove" by anecdotal evidence, that all people on Medicaid are lazy sloths who are gaming the system. My wife is a pharmacist and she could provide you a LAUNDRY list of examples, but that doesn't make my observation true, regardless.

Brilliant post.

You rather hit the nail on its head with pinpointing the loose relation between education and money - one of the few major points where the liberal theory of shower-money-upon-'em fails.

Anyway, your thoughts about peer groups were truly interesting. I went to a good (with Eastern European standards) school, which however had a lousy student body. Ivy league applications were not the norm (well, there weren't ANY, actually). I applied to Oxford and an Ivy League university, and I was pretty much laughed/sneered at for it (got admitted to both, will attend Oxford).

Now I did not tell all this as an idle story of self-congratulation. What was lacking in my case, and this applied to my whole country, was the lack of a central vision of fostering talent and ambition to study and generally 'do well'. Being a staunch libertarian myself, it is pretty rare that I call for state intervention, but I think as I cannot imagine any of the market actors intervening into public life by promoting learning and the general concept of 'doing well', the state should launch massive steps to bring back the respect of education. Not a half-hearted ad effort, but a real strong campaign to promote education. This alone may not be as effective as the steps you described, but it certainly would lift a great many poor people out of abject poverty.

"What bothers conservatives, at least the ones I know, is the relative silence from 'national' and 'community' leaders with apparent sway in the affected communities. There is no chorus, loud and long, exhorting the poor--specifically poor minorities--on the moral/social imperative of taking responsibility for raising their children and to instill in them a desire and an understanding about the need for a good education, a strong work ethic and a regard for being a law abiding citizen.

Could not be more true and could not have spoken my thoughts more clearly. Moreover, I am sure that any public figure given over to this sort of exhortation would be promptly shouted down for moralizing, etc.

I really wonder how people have the confidence to state what black community leaders are saying to their communities. Do you attend black churches? Subscribe to the newsletters of the Urban Leage, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the NAACP?

I feel like people judge the situation based on what reaches them through their own media filters. There's nothing wrong with having media filters, there's too much information for everyone to monitor everything. But I think people should be extraordinarily wary of making "their silence is deafening" accusations when they haven't sat their ass in a chair and been to the meetings they think ignore the issues.

Many African-Americans are well aware of bad behaviors that hold individuals within their community back. Many leaders speak out against them, in churches and otherwise. I remember reading on the Internet, people expressing their exasperation at white people who said "finally!" when Bill Cosby gave his speeches last year or two years ago--some people have been saying things like that for YEARS.

The existence of a handful of prominent community leaders who focus on politics or self-promotion, and who may or may not have a community behind them, does not mean that others don't exist. It's a bit like saying Pat Robertson is the only voice of evangelical Christianity because the pastors at thousands of smaller churches never make it on the news. These discussions happen, even if you aren't looking.

Jane,

I love your brain.

being poor is ...
http://www.scalzi.com/whatever/003704.html

I really wonder how people have the confidence to state what black community leaders are saying to their communities. Do you attend black churches? Subscribe to the newsletters of the Urban Leage, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the NAACP?

What pray tell qualifies the "Urban Leage, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the NAACP" as "black community leaders"? Is there some sort of special election that black citizens have to elect their "leaders" or are these just the people whose phone numbers the MSM journalists have in their rolodexes?

Brittain:

I cannot speak for mckinney, but I can speak for myself. As someone who considers themselves a Christian conservative, I am sensitive to the Robertson analogy (and don't much like him). I believe you in that I am sure these conversations are happening. However, I don't believe (or at least the results do not show) that mckinney's solutions have reached the level of conventional wisdom. (The Cosby speeches tend to indicate that they have not.) 'Many' or 'some', as you say, is not most and not all. I'm guessing that mckinney views his points as first priorities and central solutions; they (the community leaders) may view them as side points to the main issues of racism, etc. I don't know; I'd be interested in hearing what you think.

As for the Southern Poverty Law Center, a quick (ten minute) perusal of their quarterly newsletters for the past two/three years yields one story on literacy issues. The rest seem to mostly be their bread and butter: teaching tolerance, battles with anti-immigration groups, the religious right and various identity politics initiatives. I haven't looked at the others yet, but I might.

(I should note that these are likely sent to donors, so it may not be 'what's really on their minds' so to speak. Additionally, I am not faulting them for focusing their newsletters on their bread and butter. Finally, I am also aware that the SPLC has the reputation of being Morris Dees' personal bank. I think I will now look at the Urban League, etc., as you have suggested.)

I'd be interested in hearing more specific examples of the 'inner conversation' if you're up for it.

I'm back. After giving the same amount of attention to the Urban League and the NAACP, I can say 'values'-type thoughts are, at the very least, something that the Urban League president is intent upon emphasizing. I'd argue that the NAACP strategic plan places more emphasis on the typical issues that we'd associate with them. Again, this is a brief perusal and I could be wrong.

The cause of the problem of poverty is in the thinking of the poor, as Jane argues in her piece. Understandably, she stumbles when it comes to offering a solution because, I think, there is no thing one person can do to change another person's thinking without coercion. And coercion -- such as, say, taking children away from "bad" parents and raising them in a "good" environment -- is a sort of Pol-Pot solution that free people can't (and shouldn't) consider.

My thinking on the subject is that the best thing you can offer the poor is your own personal example of living honorably and well. They need examples, not freebies. They need to see themselves figuring out and solving their own problems, not learning to be professional victims always on the lookout for a handout from guilt-ridden non-poor people.

Life is hard in many ways, and not fair except I think in this sense: every soul has a spark of God in it. None of us come here, I think, to be helpless victims unable to improve our lives. The road is harder for some, but the glory is greater for them when they triumph. We who are succeeding are providing a multitude of examples of how to succeed. The lessons are there for anyone who cares to learn them.

If you think about it, feeling responsible for solving someone else's problem is another way of saying you think they are incapable of solving it themselves. And that is a pretty pessimistic view of human potential I think.

There is of course one inherent assumption in Jane's post and the belief system of pretty much every poster who agrees with her and every political conservative in this country. There is not only a job in this country for every single one of those poor people if they'd just do what the conservatives say they should, but that each of those jobs pays enough and provides enough hours on the job to raise them above the poverty line. It is an article of faith. Not only faith but blind, unquestioning faith in the First Church of Free Market. They conveniently ignore the working poor who have done exactly what they posit as the solution and are still living in poverty or just barely above it. They ignore the fact that Wal Mart, the nation's largest employer makes certain that more of their employees than want to stay as part-time employees with no benefits and that in spite of what they spout about their wages being competitive even many full time employees can't afford the health insurance they offer.

> Do you attend black churches? Subscribe to the newsletters of the Urban Leage, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and the NAACP?

Feel free to post specific supporting links.

(I've heard that claim before. Maybe this will be the first time that someone backed it up.)

Re-reading my post I see that I didn't make it clear that Wal Mart is just an example of how many businesses (not all) pay only lip service to caring about their employees. I congratulate William for winding up where he did in life in spite of where he started. I just recognize that there aren't enough positions in our economy for everyone to have a story like his.

Who was it that said, "If you want a friend, get a dog".
Jim S - I would imagine that you'd also find plenty of employees who pay lip service to the idea of caring about their employers. What on earth does this have to do with anything?
Life is not fair, Walmart is not in business to provide health insurance, nobody is forced to work for them, no community is forced to accept their stores.

Those are all true stories. I could tell many more - Randy Gordon

I think I'd rather hear what noble lengths you went to in helping all of these destitute neighbors of yours. But before you do that, I just hafta know how a Ph.D. and "Software Developer and Enterprise Architect" who's been employed steadily for the last 25 years in pretty nice-sounding corporate IT jobs wind up living in what is apparantly the most down-on-it's-luck neighborhood in America? This IS your resume, right? And not some other Randy Gordon with the email address randyjg2[at]yahoo.com?

So now that you've finished inveighing against Jane's readers with the full weight of your moral righteousness, maybe you can get down off that high horse and let us all know what the ghetto-fabulous Mr. "former direct report to CTO Merrill Lynch Private Client" did to assist that bus driver you know who had to sell his house to pay for his brain-damaged daughter's medical bills - did you help out with a few of those bills? How about the guy who's cat died on "December 9th, 2002" - did you offer to pay the veterinary fees for your broke neighbor? Randy, at least tell me you went to console the guy while he lay cradling his dead cat on the apartment floor! Or were you jetting around on business for Hochma Incorporated that week? Jeez, your resume says you were a "Principal", I would think someone at that level could at least get off of work to help a friend in need!

So anyway, don't be modest! Inspire me with the stories of your saintly and charitable behaviour in the face of the poverty and tragedy that surrounded you!

There is not only a job in this country for every single one of those poor people if they'd just do what the conservatives say they should, but that each of those jobs pays enough and provides enough hours on the job to raise them above the poverty line. It is an article of faith. Not only faith but blind, unquestioning faith in the First Church of Free Market. They conveniently ignore the working poor who have done exactly what they posit as the solution and are still living in poverty or just barely above it. They ignore the fact that Wal Mart, the nation's largest employer makes certain that more of their employees than want to stay as part-time employees with no benefits and that in spite of what they spout about their wages being competitive even many full time employees can't afford the health insurance they offer.

And your solution to this would be what? Have the government hire them to do something that isn't needed? "Living wage" laws that eliminate some jobs and/or raise the price of most everything?

I've often wondered what would happen to the salaries of skilled or semi-skilled workers if suddenly it was mandated that positions requiring no job skills suddenly paid the same as the jobs they went to school for?

See, I can't relate at all; I am, and always was, strongly resistant to peer pressure.

That's not a claim to virtue; bull-headed stubborn individualism like mine is decidedly maladapted to living with other humans. But I cannot imagine a situation in which I would do something as minor as have a beer (and I'm of age by a number of years now, so it is very minor) because other people pressured or expected me to have one.

(Now, if we're postulating taking a can of beer I'd been handed and throwing it in the face of the person pressuring me the most with a profanity-laced version of "Leave me alone!", well, that's something I'd have done when I was sixteen. And then I'd have been very remosrseful about the violent outburst immediately afterwards, which wouldn't do the kid hit in the head with a can of beer any good.)

Jim S.,

How much would you pay per hour to a handyman with an IQ of 85 and poor impulse control? One who never showed up on time and sometimes didn't show up at all.

I don't know, Thorley, you tell me what qualifies someone to be described as a black community leader--I'm not the one criticizing them for their silence.

Feel free to post specific supporting links.

www.google.com

P.S. Andy, klug's already confirmed my comment about the Urban League.

Your reward for writing a cogent and well expressed post is to be called a cesspool. Ain't life grand.

1) Finish high school
2) Get married before having children
3) Have no more than two children
4) Work full time

Freud said the motivation for behaior lay in either the pusuit of pleasure or the avoidance of displeasure.

I wonder how far a healthy sense of SHAME for not achieving the above 4 hallmarks of responsible, adult behavior would go solving the problem?

Brittain 33—its hard to prove a negative, but let me try. Have you ever heard a prominent white politician address the Urban League or the NAACP or any other such entity and decry the illegitimacy rate among black teenagers, the drop out rate or the crime rate? I haven’t either, because these topics are off limits. It would be political suicide. You mentioned Bill Cosby and by doing so made my point. When Cosby spoke out, two things happened. First, he made headlines. Normally, everyday, ho-hum events don’t make headlines. Cosby’s statements went directly against the conventional grain. Second, a bunch of women started coming forward claiming he’d drugged and molested them. Are these second allegations true? If yes, then where are the indictments? If not, then why did Cosby suddenly attract THAT kind of attention?

Your larger question: do I spend much time in African American churches? No, I don’t. But, I follow with interest a number of black pundits, the Congressional Black Caucus and the two leading racial industrialists of our times, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson. I keep listening, but hear nary a word. Occasionally, one of these will make a pro forma ‘self help’ statement, but this is by no means the dominant message in that community.

Jim S—the only way to pull the ‘where are the jobs?’ rabbit out of the big hat is to stuff it in there in the first place. First, show me a legitimate cohort of any slice of our diverse society where all four of Jane’s behaviors are fulfilled. Then, show me that these folks can’t do better than spotty minimum wage employment. In effect, your argument is, “what is the point of doing all that hard work, no one is going to hire them anyway.”

Roger Gordon—the question is whether to award bonus points for having the courage to make those bizarre points on this blog, knowing how badly you would get hammered or to wonder if yours was not some kind of stealth post you threw out there just to see what kind of reaction you could stir up. Seriously, are you unaware that there are some rather stunning disparities in achievement and behaviors between some ethnic groups and others and that these behaviors correlate directly with poverty, crime and illegitimacy? That is what this thread is addressing. As a post script, I know at least as many sad stories as you do, and plenty of ‘boot strap’ stories too, and in every instance, individual character and drive is a factor.

Uh, you know, Brittain, I wasn't necessarily confirming your comment. As I have said before, just because one person or 'the top' is saying it, doesn't mean that it has reached the level of conventional wisdom.

If you have evidence that it HAS reached the level of conventional wisdom amongst the hoi polloi, that would be worthwhile. Your "google.com" crack isn't particularly useful, and surprising, 'cause I've particularly admired your comments. Well, you can't please everyone, I guess.

"I wonder how far a healthy sense of SHAME for not achieving the above 4 hallmarks of responsible, adult behavior would go solving the problem?"

I dunno, but I figure that if you've got 1, 3, and 4 down, our society could use all the children you're willing to have and support on your own.

This post was really good, but it seems like it confirms much of the conservative response to poverty.

I feel pity for the poor, but at the same time, I feel that to some degree, bad choices that lead to poverty need to be shamed.

However, when this is done, the retort of your judging and being mean and cold-hearted, is thrown around. But shaming works...and liberals who chide those who use it, only make it easier for the poor to remain so.

As to the GED vs. Diploma? It doesn't really surprise me that the GED doesn't get you very far. It's like a college degree in a way, I'm convinced that most people don't learn many appreciable job skills in college. Instead, a diploma or degree or the lack thereof better references an individuals tenacity and committment to getting important work done. It is mostly a symbol that says to others, I work hard to get the things done that matter.

What I was trying to point out is that there cannot be a legitimate debate on what our response as a society to poverty should be unless we look at it honestly instead of being blinded by ideology. If conservatives insist on believing that everyone who follows Jane's advice will make it on their own economically in our society then that debate can't take place. The current poverty level for a family of four would require that one wage earner make $9.30 and work 40 hours a week just to reach poverty level. If the second adult goes to work to increase the family's income child care has to be taken into account and it's not cheap. In addition the guidelines have serious flaws, most of which lead to an understatement of poverty. Please note that I did not say ALL of the problems of the system overstate, but those are the dominant ones. Even for just a couple poverty level is $6.16 an hour assuming full-time work, not minimum wage. Remember that the guidelines for poverty take into account only day-to-day living expenses, not extraordinary expenses like medical bills. They don't allow for the many cities and towns like the Kansas City area where many of the jobs are not in areas that have mass transit so if you want to get to work you have to have a car with all of its attendant expenses including the current price of gas.

No, Paul, I don't have a solution. I doubt that there necessarily is just one simple solution. But if we don't look for one based on an honest evaluation of the problem instead of blind ideology we will never find a solution because we'll be asking the wrong questions.

gazzer is a perfect example of the problem. It is a typical "conservative" response. He says that no one forces them to work at Wal Mart or places like it. Reality is that for many if not most Americans you take the job you can get. gazzer's comment comes from the brain dead faith that declares that there are just so many good jobs out there that everyone who doesn't like working at someplace that doesn't pay enough or doesn't provide benefits can just go out there and get a different job. It bears no resemblance to reality, of course but that doesn't stop him from spouting ignorant pronouncements.

Ms. Galt:

For your next post, could you outline the four goals that we in the middle class can achieve to move into the upper class?

Preferably goals that are a little less deterministic.

-jayson

The current poverty level for a family of four would require that one wage earner make $9.30 and work 40 hours a week just to reach poverty level. If the second adult goes to work to increase the family's income child care has to be taken into account and it's not cheap.

It totally isn't cheap. I can attest, it has taken a long time to learn to finish something, rather than give up; I believe that to have something to do with parenting. I don't blame my mother here; she had a couple of jobs to do to keep the car running and provide food and whatnot. I did well figuring out stuff on my own, but not quite well enough. Again, I'm not blaming anyone. Life is good. I just think I'm one of the few here that's actually had to heat rainwater on a wood-burning stove in order to wash my hair before I went to highschool.

Jayson:

I have a few in mind:

1. Go to college and choose a major field which will lead to a high-paying career. Going to law, medical, or business school helps.
2. For your primary residence, buy (or rent) as little as you can stand, not as much as you can afford.
3. Put off having children until your thirties.
4. Limit other unnecessary expenditures.

An individual following these rules should be able to save at least $20,000 per year with a bachelor's degree, and much more with a professional degree. That will rise as your pay rises, of course.

I can't think of any conservatives, outside of the Charles Dickens novels I read as a kid, who think the *poor* are worse people. The people conservatives think of as "worse" are people who have children out of wedlock, display poor impulse control, show disdain for education, etc, etc. These people are disproportionately poor, but it is their immoral and irresponsible behavior that conservatives disdain, not their poverty. Which is why conservatives are, in my experience, every bit as willing to condemn the Paris Hiltons of the world as they are to condemn black welfare queens.

Dan writes:

>>>"I can't think of any conservatives, outside of the Charles Dickens novels I read as a kid, who think the *poor* are worse people."

I can. Absolutely. There were threads on this very blog examining the genetic component of "poor people." How success could be a part of heredity and not environment. This type of argument is at the root of works by conservative think-tank sponsored authors like Charles Murray and D'nesh D'Souza. If you want a clear example of this mentality, let's look at the "underbelly" of Hurricane Katrina coverage that isn't reported widely.

>>>""The mostly African-American neighborhoods of New Orleans are largely underwater, and the people who lived there have scattered across the country. But in many of the predominantly white and more affluent areas, streets are dry and passable. Gracious homes are mostly intact and powered by generators. Yesterday, officials reiterated that all residents must leave New Orleans, but it's still unclear how far they will go to enforce the order."

"The green expanse of Audubon Park, in the city's Uptown area, has doubled in recent days as a heliport for the city's rich -- and a terminus for the small armies of private security guards who have been dispatched to keep the homes there safe and habitable. Mr. O'Dwyer has cellphone service and ice cubes to cool off his highballs in the evening. By yesterday, the city water service even sprang to life, making the daily trips to his neighbor's pool unnecessary. A pair of oil-company engineers, dispatched by his son-in-law, delivered four cases of water, a box of delicacies including herring with mustard sauce and 15 gallons of generator gasoline..."
"How do they want the city rebuilt?"

>>>"..."The power elite of New Orleans -- whether they are still in the city or have moved temporarily to enclaves such as Destin, Fla., and Vail, Colo. -- insist the remade city won't simply restore the old order. New Orleans before the flood was burdened by a teeming underclass, substandard schools and a high crime rate. The city has few corporate headquarters.

"The new city must be something very different, Mr. Reiss says, with better services and fewer poor people. "Those who want to see this city rebuilt want to see it done in a completely different way: demographically, geographically and politically," he says. "I'm not just speaking for myself here. The way we've been living is not going to happen again, or we're out."

Not every white business leader agrees, Cooper notes.

"Some black leaders and their allies in New Orleans fear that it boils down to preventing large numbers of blacks from returning to the city and eliminating the African-American voting majority. Rep. William Jefferson, a sharecropper's son who was educated at Harvard and is currently serving his eighth term in Congress, says, "This is an example of poor people forced to make choices because they don't have the money to do otherwise," Mr. Jefferson says."

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/WSJ_White_rich_escape_New_Orleans_chaos_dont_want_blacks_poor__0908.html

Often, I refer to the military as an example. I've posted before how an E-3 serving in Iraq right now makes less on average than a discount store clerk or a fast food worker, yet I don't hear any of the ribbon-wearing "war-and-tax cuts" right winged crowd ever calling our servicemen and women as unmotivated or lazy, but in truth, these folks are risking their lives everyday for less than a door greeter at Walmart. In fact, Jessica Lynch only joined the military to help pay for college, because her Palestine, WV hometown had 20% unemployment and she couldn't even GET a job at the local Walmart.

The truth is, who you were born to, and the conditions in which you were raised has a whole lot more to do with your station in life than the free market uber alles-types may be prepared to admit.

--Cobra

There is a standard psychological flaw that all human beings share called 'Attribution Bias'. It is the belief that all good things that happen to us are the result of our own effort and decisions while all bad things that happen to us are the result of luck.

Conservatives seem to have this in spades. They feel that their station in life was earned by their own good effort and good decisions. Thus, if other's suffer from a lower station in their life, it must be because of their poor effort and bad decisions.

In fact, the strongest indicator to one's class is not one's decisions or effort.

The strongest indicator to being upper class or middle class in the US is to have parents who are upper class or middle class.

This correlation is stronger in the states than in Europe, which is tremendously sad, and probably due to the differences by which we approach health care.

For example, a severe medical crisis seems to be the number one reason why middle class people fall into bankrupcy.

If conservatives could see beyond attribution bias to the actual problems of being small fragile beings in a large and uncaring universe, they might approach solutions that go beyond moralizing about 'stay in school, say no to drugs, and keep it in your pants.'

Kilroy Was Here

PS That whole out of wedlock thing betrays a racist undertone. If you look at Oklahoma, one of the poorest states in the nation, you'll see that they also have one of the highest rates of marriage. Unfortunately, Oklahoma also tends to marry very young, and then get divorced very young.

But since the majority of poor in Oklahoma are white, we don't talk much about 'don't get married until your 25' as one of our conservative platitudes on how to achieve middle class.

KWH

Cobra: "The truth is, who you were born to, and the conditions in which you were raised has a whole lot more to do with your station in life than the free market uber alles-types may be prepared to admit."

Your quote in no way supports that. Nor does your quote (from what looks like a left-wing version of WorldNet Daily) provide a "clear example" of the mentality you describe.

We need some numbers here. What proportion of the people who meet Jane's criteria have an income below the poverty line. For bonus points, slice out those younger than 25, since it take a few years to get started in life. I would do it myself, except I don't have access to the GSS. Until someone posts some reliable numbers, I will err on the side of Jane.

When I got out of high school a few years back, with no job skills and no experience, my first job paid $8-10 hour (it varied, since it was piece rate). They had trouble getting people, so they hired me on the spot. My current job, as a janitor, pays $6, not a whole lot, but I don't plan on having kids until I have enough training to get something better.

Kilroy: "PS That whole out of wedlock thing betrays a racist undertone. If you look at Oklahoma, one of the poorest states in the nation, you'll see that they also have one of the highest rates of marriage. Unfortunately, Oklahoma also tends to marry very young, and then get divorced very young.

"But since the majority of poor in Oklahoma are white, we don't talk much about 'don't get married until your 25' as one of our conservative platitudes on how to achieve middle class."

Any actual evidence for that, or do you just enjoy imputing bad motives to people? Once again, some numbers would be very helpful.

"The strongest indicator to being upper class or middle class in the US is to have parents who are upper class or middle class."

That's an indicator, not a cause, so you need to look for intervening factors. I'm sure that no good conservative would deny that the quality of parenting one recieves makes a difference, in addition to financial support toward a college degree. If the children of mid-to-upper class parents are also more likely to graduate high school and delay having kids, then that data point means nothing. What happens to lower-class kids who do Jane's four points or middle-class kids who ignore them? That would be a fairly interesting study, though difficult to perform.

Cory - Regarding marriage in Oklahoma, please see the PBS website for the show Frontline about marriage:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/marriage/

Here's an excerpt from the synopsys:

The most extensive marriage experiment to date started in Oklahoma. Faced with the nation's second highest divorce rate, Gov. Frank Keating decided to take action, launching in 1999 a $10 million initiative to encourage people to think more carefully before making the decision to marry.

The documentary looks at how Keating's pro-marriage initiative is aimed at people like Johnni Dyer. Twice divorced, with four kids and no job, the 36-year-old Dyer lives in subsidized housing and is on welfare. To receive her welfare check, along with job training, Dyer now takes "PREP" -- the state's twelve-hour "relationship training" program. Although the classes have given Dyer a new perspective on her marriages, Dyer tells FRONTLINE that she really doesn't think the program would have saved her marriages.

While people in Oklahoma may be getting married -- and divorced -- too quickly, in some parts of America most people aren't getting married at all.

Hope this helps.

Cory -

Regarding indicators vs. causes, my indicator is no more or less supported in my post than Jane Galt's 4 indicators in her post. In other words, there is no more evidence that failing to meet Jane Galt's 4 standards cause poverty than that being born to poor parents cause poverty.

Since Galt makes the extradonary claim that just working her 4 step magic formula can lift someone from poverty to middle class, it is up to her to show evidence. In fact, Galt does not cite any sort of correlation between her 4 factors and poverty. It's just taken as given because it jibes with common sense.

As for social mobility in the US vs. Europe, I'll at least provide some outside evidence. Please see, http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/pressAndInformationOffice/newsAndEvents/archives/2005/LSE_SuttonTrust_report.htm

Thanks,
KWH

gazzer is a perfect example of the problem. It is a typical "conservative" response. He says that no one forces them to work at Wal Mart or places like it. Reality is that for many if not most Americans you take the job you can get.

I would be happy to see stronger regulatory legislation dealing with the "59 day job" problem that often comes up with employers such as Wal-Mart, as well as the practice (engaged by many businesses) of staffing a majority of essentially full-time positions with a gaggle of part-time laborors to avoid having to provide benefits.

On the other hand, this is not a one-sided proposition. The less-desirable jobs provided by e.g. Wal-Mart often mean lower prices at the check-out stand, which benefits a very large number of consumers; moreover the competitive edge provided thereby allows many of those stores to exist and thereby create those jobs. Sure, people often have to take the best job they can find; but that neither entitles them to the job they would like to find, and for many, a basic job is better than no job at all. (As you may yet have a chance to discover in your lifetime.)

It's not like Wal-Mart has managed to shut down Kmart, Target, Sears, Home Depot, Lowe's, Pet Smart, Ross, Big Lots, Best Buy, Circuit City, CompUSA, Foley's, JCPenny, Kohl's, Safeway, Kroger and subsidiaries, Albertson's, Meijer, RadioShack, Michael's, or any of the dozens of other chains (and local shops -- many Wal-Mart communities manage to sustain healthy local businesses) that share inventory overlap with Wal-Mart. Rather, it's that Wal-Mart has alternately carved out and created a large market segment by competing almost exclusively on price -- and many consumers have responded, and helped make Wal-Mart into an empire, and thus it ALSO provides jobs.

Tell me, seeing as you enjoy painting with the broad brush, is it a "typical liberal response" to pretend that everyone is entitled to exactly the kind of job they want to have without possibly having to create it (they are not -- pursuit of happiness, not guarantee thereof), or that nice, pleasant jobs are some sort of historical norm (they are not, once you sink the spade deeper than the topsoil), or that insecure retail jobs are not still better than low-wage labor of times past (they are -- air conditioning, OSHA regulatory compliance, etc.)?

The strongest indicator to being upper class or middle class in the US is to have parents who are upper class or middle class

Obviously. 88% of the country is middle-class; it is statistically unavoidable that birth should be the strongest indicator. Even if every single poor person in America became middle class tomorrow, it would still be true that over four-fifths of the middle class had been born middle class. The only way to avoid that would be for large percentages of the middle class to become impoverished each generation.

Anyway, your extremely silly suggestion that birth is what really matters is easily refutable with the simple observation that middle-class children who drop out of high school, have a bunch of kids out of wedlock, and never work full time, wind up poor.

A person who finishes high school, refrains from having kids, and gets a full-time job is not going to be poor. They're going to go straight into the middle class at age 18.

If you have a full-time job and no dependents, you can't be poor--at least not officially. The poverty line for a household of one is less than you would earn from working full time at minimum wage.

Darn. Jane didn't post her source for the four pieces of advice. They came up here some months ago, but I can't find the post easily - anybody remember when it was? (I admit to not looking too hard.) Point being, IIRC, she did indeed have statistical evidence for those four factors' being correlated heavily with not being/becoming poor. Whether the arrow of causation is pointing in the correct direction, I cannot say, though I'd go out on a limb to say that it can't hurt your prospects to stay in school, put off marriage until you have a relatively mature outlook, put off children until you have a spouse, and work a full-time job, at any wage.

What saddens me is that the social pressure to do these things apparently used to apply equally to the poor and to the middle class. (The truly rich, I think, have some different rules, or at least can flout these rules with impunity as long as the money holds out - and so it's always been.) Les Miserables, for instance, makes a tragedy of Fantine's "fallen" state - she made one really bad decision, got knocked up and abandoned, had to give up her child and work as a prostitute in order to send money for her child's upkeep, and died of the standard broken heart/TB combination that has come to the aid of so many novelists. It's clear from both the novel and, I think, the musical book that her downfall was precipitated by circumstances, but its seed was planted by her own initial lapse in morals - which she's bitterly aware of, which is why she's such a tragic figure. And Valjean, forever a con for stealing a loaf of bread to feed his sister's starving child, pays his debt to society and then (thanks to God and a kind priest) turns over a spectacularly moral new leaf. More simplistically, Dickens's poor heroes were virtuous, his underclass villains immoral - his comic-relief characters tended to be immoral too, I think, in a lesser sense - given to drink instead of robbery, like that. L.M. Alcott made a career of her poor but moral family. These are all from a time when the poor had much less chance of eventual economic success than they do now.

But now, just at the time when great swaths of people can be more socially and economically mobile than ever before in the history of the world, I bet, "old-fashioned" values have become foreign to the economic class that could most immediately and directly benefit from them. Recall Jane's post on the welfare-reform book dealing with the three African-American women, sisters and a mother, I think, not one of whom (not the point of the book, but a poignant fact nonetheless) had ever been to a wedding. Why? How did this happen? When did poor women cease to value themselves to the point that they'd give in to a man's "baser desires" without extracting a commitment from him first? Was there ever a successful society where the women didn't demand, and get, the support they needed from the fathers of their children? Is the price we pay for sexual equality that there's no longer an acknowledgement that having a baby puts a woman at an economic disadvantage, unless she has help? Are we blind?

I disagree with Cobra as to what the physical setting of New Orleans illustrates. The homes of the rich on high ground and the poor on low ground is certainly a historical relic with functionally racist roots, because it's in New Orleans. And certainly if New Orleans rises from its sodden ashes in exactly the same spot, the same building pattern will hold, but you'll have to go a lot farther toward convincing me that it'd be a racist thing rather than an economic one. In all cases, in all cities no matter how ethnically homogeneous, some areas are more desirable to live in than others, and the rich build there. In my home town, in which there was about one black family when my mom was growing up, the poor lived in the mosquito-infested reclaimed swamp, the rich on the higher and breezier ground, the middle-class in the middle elevations.

As to not intentionally reestablishing the criminal underclass for which New Orleans is so notorious, how can that be a bad thing for rich or poor? If more corporate HQs could be wooed to settle in the area (though I don't see how), wouldn't that potentially benefit the entire population?

Vestiges of racism will always be with us, I think - it's xenophobia with the "other" defined by physical characteristics rather than geographic, and has been part of the human condition since there was one. But looking for it in every statement by the "privileged" class is an overly popular sport, I think.

I find in interesting that some people have turned this into a racial issue. As long as wealth and poverty are tied to race in so many people's worldviews, it really can't be solved. Simply, people can't change their race. However, I know far too many intelligent, productive middle-class blacks to believe for a second that they are a figment of my imagination. And I know any number of whites who have made a disaster out of their lives through poor decisions.

The belief that all value systems are equally good and must be respected is corrosive to the very message that might help some of the people caught in social groups that don't want them to act in any way that would help them to rise out of the group. There's a time to say that people in bad situations aren't bad themselves, nor are their peers. But they are acting on a model of behavior that is geared to failure.

It isn't skin pigmentation that's creating and perpetuating poverty. We need the liberal acceptance of the person as worthy, as having begun from a morally equal stance at birth. And we need the conservative willingness to judge decisions, actions and values. People are worthy of succeeding, but that doesn't make every path they choose to success equally worthy.

Brandon:

Thank you for your optimistic response. It's refreshing in this fatalist thread. I took the time to make my post short, but see that the encapsulated sarcasm was overlooked.

I was attempting to point out the slippery slope of this discussion. Specifically, the "cultural context" position that Megan is taking is that as people go through their formative years, they do not choose their parents, their location of birth, their place of education or their peers. Thus, by the time they have developed into mature decision-making adults with the ability to migrate geographically to more lucrative areas and jettison their poverty minded friends for those with brighter futures, they already have fundamental attributes that will define their futures.

Therefore, when looked at as a statistical whole, they have no choice but to be poor. The universe has conspired against them. Except, of course, for the fortunate intelligent ones who could escape the trap. If, of course, intelligence is the deciding factor.

The same argument can then be applied to the middle-class and what keeps them from becoming wealthy. If we are to believe what Megan is alluding to then we of the middle class have very little to aspire to since we have chains upon us that we cannot see and will have great difficulty breaking without the wealthy pointing out the four obvious steps we need to take.

-jayson

"I would be happy to see stronger regulatory legislation dealing with the "59 day job" problem that often comes up with employers such as Wal-Mart, as well as the practice (engaged by many businesses) of staffing a majority of essentially full-time positions with a gaggle of part-time laborors to avoid having to provide benefits."

Simple. Let employers give full-time hours for as long as they want without providing benefits.

And stop giving tax favors to benefits over cash payment. We should not be in the habit of encouraging people to get things like health care from the company store.

Kilroy sez: But since the majority of poor in Oklahoma are white, we don't talk much about 'don't get married until your 25' as one of our conservative platitudes on how to achieve middle class.

In fact, that is very close to one of the platitudes that conservatives use. For example, George Will has long said that:

It turns out that there are three rules for avoiding long-term poverty - rules which make it unlikely that a person adhering to them will fall into such poverty. The three rules are:

First, graduate from high school. Second, have no child out of wedlock. Third, have no child before you are 20.

This is not a moral assertion, it is an empirical observation: The portion of the population that today is caught in long-term poverty consists overwhelmingly of people who have disregarded one or more of these rules.

It's not exactly what you were referring to, but it's pretty close. I'd argue this is part of what Jane was referring to.

The same argument can then be applied to the middle-class and what keeps them from becoming wealthy

What keeps the average member of the middle class from becoming wealthy is that there isn't much reason to do the work necessary for it. Middle-class Americans live in comfort and a reasonable degree of luxury. There's a lot of stuff we *want* that we can't afford, but little we *need* that we can't afford.

Becoming wealthy involves a lot of unplesant work and/or risk-taking, for years or decades, while simultaneously scrimping and saving in order to invest the maximum amount possible into your business or investments. Basically, you end up living like you're poor in order that your kids can live like they're rich. It's not really worth it unless you love to work your ass off.

Ken said: "And stop giving tax favors to benefits over cash payment. We should not be in the habit of encouraging people to get things like health care from the company store.". Unfortunately they will not be offered any alternative for the foreseeable future.

Cobra writes:

The truth is, who you were born to, and the conditions in which you were raised has a whole lot more to do with your station in life than the free market uber alles-types may be prepared to admit.

This is quite true. Having parents who care about education, morals, and your future makes all the difference in the world. And I would wager that most (not all, but most) conservatives would agree with that statement.

That said, what do you propose we DO about it? We can't force parents to care. Handing them free money certainly doesn't install in them the inspriation to teach their children properly. What would you have us DO about it? Lecturing that poor kids often can't help turning out the way they do is all well and good, and lecturing conservatives they should "care more" about the poor is nice as well. But what would you have us DO?

The truth is we care and we don't want grinding poverty in the US, but we damn well know the welfare state doesn't prevent it. Got any ideas?

I read an article years ago (forget the author) who quantified the reduction in poverty if a person:
1. finished high school
2. got married before having children, and stayed married
3. avoided drugs and other illegal activites
4. worked full time

That list was pretty much the same as yours, except that avoiding drugs and crime replaces having more than two kids. Based on the statistics he looked at, those four behavior changes would eliminate over 95% of all poverty.

I think avoiding drugs/crime is probably more important than having three or more kids, so I like the older list better. You did a better job explaining the source of the problem however, imho.

I'm surprised how many people think that, because the circumstances of your birth can influence your values, it is fine to simply ignore the values entirely and only give credit to the birth. Yes, if you're born to people who are ignorant and irresponsible, you're likely to be ignorant and irresponsible to. But it is the ignorance and irresponsibility that keep you down, not your birth.

A person born into a culture which disdains things like marriage, education, and hard work does have a tough life ahead of him -- but mostly only because it is very difficult to choose to reject the inferior culture of your parents and peers in favor of the superior culture of middle-class America.

It's amazing that only one person actually had the guts to even start a email debate with me. Why do you think I included my email address, twice? randyjg2(at)yahoo.com

You would think Janes "superior class" wouldn't be afraid of engaging in a debate with such a social and intellectual inferior.

Comon guy n' gals, I really had hopes of a dialog here. Surely you can take up your rich mans burden and convey your wisdom to such a misinformed low class wretch as myself.

Actually,
1) It isn't that bad a neighborhood, just not rich
2) its where I grew up.
3) We help each other.. a lot. How do you think I know those stories?

Look, heres the real issue. Most of the poor are there because of either catastrophic illness in the family or unemployment due to economic dislocation.

In my case, both. We don't show up in the statistics because we have a strong work ethic, and when we need help, our church (or temple) steps in, not the government. One church I belong to has 500 local members, and spends most of its effort simply doing "good works", sorta like a real world "Seventh Heaven".

I suppose it comes naturally, Christ never thought less of poor people (though his opinion of rich people involved needles, eyes and camels, at least according to some guy named Matthew), and, to tell you the truth, we take his opinions pretty seriously.

In case you are wondering, I am a republican (rational arm, not neocon) and a conservative. (even about to get involved in the republican primaries, if they'll have me.) Most poor people are.

Thats a very important point. Most poor people (and I have known thousands) believe, in America, and in their responsibilities as Americans. Who do you think voted for Bush in the last election? THe rich ARE a minority in this country, and getting smaller by the day.

And thats why those people were screaming at their rescuers in NOLA. They expect that on the few occasions when when the government is called upon to execute its responsibilities, it will do so with the same attention and effort that they have put into being good citizens.

Which is why they don't show up on welfare rolls or studies of the "poor", they consider those who do so part of a conspiracy to cheat America.

which is also why they didn't deserve the trashing Ms. Galt gave them in her post. They've kept their end of our social compact, and, as a republican, a conservative, and a religous man, I felt obligated to defend them, as part of my obligation to the social contract that is America.

The poor are impoverished for one reason. They don't have money. No value judgement, no other reason is necessary or sufficient.

However, mostly the reason is that they choose responsibility, to their families, to their community, over amassing wealth. The poor you debate, and encounter in statistics, are the ones who didn't make that choice. Those are a minority, stop confusing us with them.

Most of the differences Jane suggests between the perpetually poor and the consistently middle class can be explained largely by a difference in Time Preference.

http://www.mises.org/humanaction/chap18sec2.asp

Dear Mr. Gordon:

It's not lack of "guts", as you say; it's just common decency. I'm not in the habit of e-mailing people in their private inboxes, even if they are foolhardy enough to expose their real e-mail addresses. If you'd had issued your challenge in your first comment, likely you would have received more responses.

Finally, the assertions that you make in your last post are laughable at best. Do you have any evidence for such a conventional wisdom-shattering concept: that a majority of the poor are 'down on their luck' or have chosen their responsibility to their families over material wealth? Do you really believe that?

Just because four statistics are linked to poor people, doesn't mean there is a causal relationship. Low income may be the causal factor. It probably goes both ways.

Myron Magnet addressed this issue some years ago in his "The Dream and The Nightmare". He expanded on the theme by pointing out that the well-off who promote this values-free behavior generally have an anchor to windward, a job, an education, a trust fund.
They can survive the consequences of poor behavior, and in fact may not be promoting it until they've actually behaved well long enough to be proof against the consequences.

Those who start with nothing are different.

I have some black clients who make me--the stereotypical straight arrow--wince at the determination with which they aim at middle-class values for themselves and their children. They know the score.

As to culture, or subculture, Thomas Sowell says, "Cultures vary and differences have consequences." Anybody want to contradict that?

You claim:
"If poor people did just four things, the poverty rate would be a fraction of what it currently is. Those four things are:

1) Finish high school
2) Get married before having children
3) Have no more than two children
4) Work full time"

Baloney. Life is not that simple. There are a helluva lot of people who were in the path of Katrina and a few other storms in the year who will never be anything but poor for the rest of their lives. You dumbass. Shit happens and statements like you just made are just your way of disconnecting yourself from feeling the least bit obligated to help fellow humans unless they profess your dogma. The conservative dream that if everyone was like you there would be no poor, self responsiblity would bring the "American Dream" everyone could keep teaching their kids that Santa is real and we would all grow rich together. Maybe 75% of the country believes this shit but only about 2% ever get close to what you are calling success. Easy for you to say.

I read and re-read your post. I think there are some very good points. However, when you stated that conservatives think poor people are "bad" you lost me. I see no evidence for this. Do I think that conservatives think poor people make bad choices? Sure. But the amazing amount of support that I have seen from the American people, and most conservatives I know, would not be made to 'bad' people.

My wife teaches at an inner-city school. The amount of 'poor' people is really complex. One of her students couldn't "afford" a pair of tights for the dance class. Her family was too 'poor' to get them. She does own an iPod, her own tv, every top HipHop CD available, and recently got an ATV from her dad. But $7 tights for school... nope.

That is a choice. Not color or ethnic. It is the 'mindset' of people whe see themselves as poor. While middle class people place certain values on the future of their kids, poor class people have a different set of values. Most of her students who end up pregnant (about 10 - 15%) refer to the children as "it", "him", "her", or "my baby". Can you imagine spanking a 10 month old baby for being, and I am quoting here, "a manipulative bitch".

When my wife works hard to get a scholarship for her students, she is often met with obstacles from the parents and the peer group. She has lost count of how many times she has heard... "I can't go to College. My parents think it will turn me white."

And still this conservative woman gets up everyday and works harder and harder to help her kids. There are a few successes, and that's what keeps her going. There should be more. Are they 'bad?' No. But the lifestyle that turns people into the chronically poor is certainly not 'good' in any definition.

Actually, Richard Aubrey, your comment neatly tracks the thoughts of Theodore Dalrymple, a British doctor who worked with the (primarily white) underclass in Britain. While he often chastised his wards for the poor decisions that they made (even when they knew them to be); he saved his most vindictive statements for those who advocated the kind of thinking and policies that most hurt the underclass, even though the advice givers/thinkers would never abide by their own philosophies.

I think this is the study Megan is referring to:

http://www.reason.com/rauch/092203.shtml

The value of an education can never be over estimated. I've screwed up more than once but having a college education with a good GPA has helped my to always land on my feet. A few years ago I took further college classes to broaden my knowledge and skills although I already had a M.S. degree. The classes helped my career immensely. The ability to accept delayed gratification (spending time getting educated) is often necessary to break out of poverty.

Chronic drug use tends to be a symptom of PTSD. Those with long term PTSD problems have had severe trauma (such as sexual molestation) and a genetic make-up that causes fear memories to decay slowly.

If we dealt with the root cause ( child abuse among others ) we would have far fewer chronic drug users.

What we do now is persecute those in pain. It is a lot of fun. Costs a lot of money, and keeps a lot of folks employed. Other than that and being a form of Republican Socialism: price supports for criminals, I can't see the good it does. Probably a moral defect on my part.

Police and PTSD

Who do you think voted for Bush in the last election?

The middle class and the wealthy. Kerry outpolled Bush among people making less than $30k a year, and Bush outpolled Kerry among people making more than $50k a year. Among people making $30k-$50k they were statistically tied.

I am a republican and a conservative.
Most poor people are.

Sorry, but that's completely false. Democrats outnumber Republicans in the lowest two income quintiles (people earning $35k/year or less); Republicans outnumber Democrats in the upper three.

THe rich ARE a minority in this country, and getting smaller by the day.

I guess that depends on what you call "rich". You seem inclined to throw the label and Jane and the other economically literate people in this thread. But using a definition of "rich" broad enough to cover us would render your statement untrue -- we outnumber the poor, and our percentage of the population is growing. The poor, meanwhile, have remained roughly constant (flucuating between 11 and 15%) since 1966. Roughly as many households earn in excess of $100,000 a year as live below the poverty line.

A useful table is here: http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/poverty/poverty04/table3.pdf

Among the interesting statistics therein: only 2.8% of people who worked full-time in 2004 are below the poverty line, and only 5.4% of married couples are poor. Which pretty much puts a bullet in the "the poor do plenty of work" and "marriage isn't a factor in poverty" theories.

The poor are impoverished for one reason. They don't have money

No, the poor are impoverished because they don't have income. And the important thing to determine is why they don't have income, and what can be done to help them earn a living.

Elambend. I read Dalrymple. Yeah, he scathes, to coin a phrase.

My wife--then a colleague and sort of girlfriend--and I did some work in a community center in a poor neighborhood when we were in college.

It was frustrating trying to follow the reasons/excuses for doing counterproductive things, or not doing productive things when the opportunity to do same was bascially presented on a platter. It was also illuminating.

I would say I learned a lot--negatively--about how to live by this experience. I watched child-rearing practices which made absolutely no sense. Ditto spending. Driving habits.

Unfortunately, in some circles, saying "You are hopping around because you shot yourself in the foot. Let me suggest you stop aiming at the other one." is considered blaming the victim and is not allowed.

But Jane doesn't (seem to) give enough credit to the role rewards and penalties play in guiding one's life decisions.

Full post here... I tried trackbacking but got error messages...

Bob Huckabee writes:

"The conservative dream that if everyone was like you there would be no poor, self responsiblity would bring the "American Dream" everyone could keep teaching their kids that Santa is real and we would all grow rich together. Maybe 75% of the country believes this shit but only about 2% ever get close to what you are calling success. Easy for you to say."

This is why there will always be a Democratic Party and why they will never get it right. Notice the implicit arrogance: 75% of the country is clueless, but not Bob. Bob is on top of it--only 2% of us get close to what we call success, which I assume means membership in the middle class. Fascinating. If I read this right, the vast majority of the country is poor, their circumstances have nothing to do with their life choices, and they are completely unaware of their condition.

Excellent post, once again, Jane.
It's hard for me to scare up any interest in debating those who cling to the marxist "class" myth. They filter all data through the class lens, and all human interactions are thus explained. It's an irrefutable thereom, and hence not a scientific one, but rather a delusion. Where we agree to abide by the evidence, they reject all evidence that doesn't fit. It's typical high school debating chicanery. Only even more dull, if that's possible.

Their only useful comeback is to disdainfully claim that those supporting capitalism "worship in the curch of the the free market". As Thomas Sowell once said to WF Buckley (IIRC), "I don't have faith in the market, I have empirical evidence from countries around the world on the superior performances of free markets."

I have to admit, the class worshippers do tell nice stories, though. Such pathos, such bathos, such smugness. If only the world really ran like they wished, then I'd finally have my boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies.

Excellent post, Jane. If we want to change poor societal outcomes, somehow we have to change to culture, in the areas where education is actively disparaged -- this is part of the cultural problem, too.

Here's my own anecdote: ten years ago, I was at a local nature preserve, on an observation platform, when I noticed a father and his four children, about 8 to 14. The kids were well spoken and polite. After a bit, the father and I got into a conversation, and this story came out.

The family lived in Alexandria, VA, on the wrong side of the tracks. The public schools tend to be populated by kids who call other kids "oreos" if they try to do well in school. The father explained that he and his wife believe that the local schools, far from teaching kids well, actually are a major source of disfunction: kids who attend such schools, they believe, learn to disrespect learning, teaching, and authority; to have sex early; to do drugs and alcohol; and in general learn every counterproductive behavior. They don't learn it from the schools, clearly, but from their fellow students. The schools, though, at least the public ones in the area, seem powerless to stop the problem. So his wife quit her job and homeschooled the kids. The results, as far as I could tell, were very positive.

What this anecdote told me -- in conjunction with loads of articles about poor schools and cultural influences on learning -- is, as Jane says, that culture and in particular peer group influence really matter.

So how do we change the culture? Slowly, one child at a time is the best I can come up with. Charter schools may be an important part of the answer in many localities: not that they are always excellent, but that on average, they are a little better. Many charters have been able to deal with these culture issues better than many local urban schools. Vouchers, too, are something I support: a neighbor of mine came from a tough background, but she got to attend a Catholic school which she credits for what she has been able to do with her life, which is quite impressive. (She attended before vouchers were available, but vouchers could allow others to have what she had.)

I have to agree with Tom. The idea that four or five fairly simple rules can be followed to reduce your chance of living in poverty used to be common sense. Now such basics are routinely challenged, and lengthy 'scholarly' treatises pretend to purport that we are born in chains. Again, ideas so foolish that only intellectuals could believe them. And many do.

As we used to say about learning a new technique: See one. Do one. Teach one. It should apply here. Edmund Burke thus spoke of the family as "the little platoons", providing the instruction to advance each generation another step or two; it was the bulkwark of civilization. Rebuilding that lost cultural knowledge can only be accomplished by taking back the schools at every level, and starting over.

The leftists need to go.

Bob Huckaby writes:

Baloney. Life is not that simple. There are a helluva lot of people who were in the path of Katrina and a few other storms in the year who will never be anything but poor for the rest of their lives. You dumbass. Shit happens and statements like you just made are just your way of disconnecting yourself from feeling the least bit obligated to help fellow humans unless they profess your dogma.

So, what you're saying is that people are poor, not because of choices they make or even because they lack the necessary parenting/peer/community structure to encourage their educational development, it's because "shit happens and everyone knows it". Really, you should write a book. I smell Pulitzer.

The conservative dream that if everyone was like you there would be no poor, self responsiblity would bring the "American Dream" everyone could keep teaching their kids that Santa is real and we would all grow rich together. Maybe 75% of the country believes this shit but only about 2% ever get close to what you are calling success. Easy for you to say.

No, I don't think she's saying that at all. I think she's saying that there are four indicators that if you do not follow them, you are MORE LIKELY to be poor. Are you trying to tell me that if you don't finish high school, have a bunch of kids without getting married and don't work full time, you have an equal chance of being poor as someone who doesn't do that?

And 2%, huh? Care to enlighten us as to what constitutes success in your world that only 2% make it? How about a married couple, a teacher and a cop? Together they make maybe $75,000-90,000 a year? How's that? Are they rich? A success? Do you have to be a CEO to be rich? Can a plumber who makes $100K a year running his own business be considered successful? Success is relative to how you define it.

Really with your tone and those comments, do you really expect to sway anyone at all to your point of view? Perhaps we're all just "too stupid to understand".

Why are anecdote's like noses?

Everyone has one and they all smell.

One big problem with many in the Republican party is their reliance on anecdote over statistics. This is one reason why a larger percentage of Republicans are atagonistic towards science.

"Oh, Mr. Science Man, you can say what you will with your statistics and experiments, but my brother's friend actually saw the exact opposite."

A couple things I'd like to add: 1) "Poor" people have many, many more material possessions than my middle-class family had when I was growing up in the '40's and '50's. My parents knew real poverty, having come of age in the depths of the depression. Poverty pimps keep moving the goalposts. 2) A very, very small percentage of minimum wage earners are heads of household. Most of them are entry-level, staying at minimum only months.

A personal acquaintance of mine had three jobs within two weeks of her release from state prison! Jobs are out there for those who are willing. If it's part-time, get two or more.

Inspired, from start to finish.

The part about peer groups is so true. I’ve been preaching “culture and character” as success determinants for a while now. Peer groups are the major source of both for most teens.

Your mistake is in thinking that your friends just chose you. You chose your friends, too. That is, you chose to hang out with people who didn't "swallow razor blades", "steal cars", "drop out of school", or "run dime bags."

The flip side of letting losers play victim politics by not taking personal responsibility for their actions is winners not taking personal credit for their good behavior.

Is this a partial or a general equilibrium analysis? And does that matter? I am not really sure. But it's worth thinking about.

Why not cut to the chase? "Poor people sure are lazy!"

Does anyone here know anyone who is hungry today? If so, is this a chronic or 1-off situation?

Losing everything does not mean you will die poor. I've lost everything.....twice. No, I didn't file a chapter. I'm not poor today.

Kilroy wrote:

Why are anecdote's like noses?

Everyone has one and they all smell.

One big problem with many in the Republican party is their reliance on anecdote over statistics. This is one reason why a larger percentage of Republicans are atagonistic towards science.

"Oh, Mr. Science Man, you can say what you will with your statistics and experiments, but my brother's friend actually saw the exact opposite."

Ya mind giving us some stats relevant to this discussion Mr. Science Guy? Are you talking about anything specfic?

If everyone adopted Jane's four points of advice, poverty wouldn't suddenly end -- but I don't think it's even arguable that it wouldn't diminish, unless you're willing to argue that screwing up your life and multiplying expenses are somehow economically beneficial.

And if there were less poverty to fight, it might be possible to concentrate our resources on those truly hard-luck cases where government assistance would make a real difference. Instead, money that could have paid for Randy's friend's poor cat's euthanasia is going to prop up my brother-in-law, who decided at age thirty that even though he wasn't ready for the commitment of marriage, it was time for him to become a father, and whose record for holding a job appears to be about six months, since he often decides smoking something or other is more fun than working.

You critics of Jane's points, are you seriously arguing that acting irrationally has no negative effect? That I'd be just as well off if I stayed home from work for the next few days because I felt like it?

One ofthe best things Ive read in recent years, thanks for the post. I was the oldest of 5 kids raised by a truck stop waitress with mental illness. Long periods of welfare dependency, mom 16 when I was born, dad 17. Father in and out of the house, frequently violent. Except for race, I fit all the criteria for the underclass, and know what it's like to feel like an immigrant when exposed to a middle class environment.
The main reason I consider myself a conservative is because I hope we have a sea change on the Supreme Court to address the most pernicious doctrine developed during the 1960's; the so called "right to privacy." There is no moral or legal basis for sanctioning child abuse in this manner, and I think future generations will view our pig headed obstinence on this issue as ridiculous. As long as we, as a society, have abandoned laisses faire economics in social welfare policy we cannot avoid requiring the disorganized and incompetent to practice manditory birth control. We have the technology to enforce these rules unobtrusively, and the benefit to society, and more important the children involved, would be more dramatic than any other single effort our country could make at this time to help the poor.

Jane:

I would disagree with you that conservatives view poor people as somehow worse people. I think most conservatives would agree with you that the reason people are poor stem ftom the reasons you mentioned. I would add alcohol/drug abuse as another factor among many poor people. I would also add some form of mental illness since, the laws were changed so that society can not take care of thise with mental illness many are disfunctional and in poverty. Many quote unquote middle class people are also one or two paychecks away from being homeless.

Bob Huckabee,

Maybe 75% of the country believes this shit but only about 2% ever get close to what you are calling success. Easy for you to say.

What was Jane "calling success"? I never saw her define "success," and I am quite sure that she wouldn't define it, as you apparently are doing now, as something so rarefied that fewer than 2% of Americans achieve it. The vast majority of Americans don't strike a sane eye as conspicuously "unsuccessful."

Jim,

If alcohol/drug abuse is a symptom of PTSD then what?

Police and PTSD

Why do poor people make bad decisions? We know that folks with PTSD problems make bad decisions.

Might there be a correlation?

It could be in part genetic.

Genetic Discrimination

Bad child rearing practices do not help. I favor education over enforcers.

BTW turning poor neighborhoods into war zones does not help.

Do they still teach alcohol prohibition history in America?

'I think that we should remove the barriers, like poor schools, that block achievement from without'

No doubt, allwe need to do is snap our fingers. Oh wait, pouring a trillion dollars down a rathole doesn't work? What will we do then?

Actually, I am deliriously happy at this point. At least there isn't the initial ex cathedra pronouncements of whats wrong with the poor. Some of you are actually examining the basis for your opinions, if only slightly.

Look, I have lived among the poor for many decades, even though I have been pretty successful at times (and been homeless once and totally broke several times), I never used drugs, never took unemployment, never did anything wrong, survived somehow. Kept my family alive and comfortable through 18 years of serial catastrophic illnesses, and thier aftermath. And I have friends who can top any of my stories a dozen times over.

I know these people, in a way your antiseptic statistics and tentative contacts in "safe" areas can't reflect.

What has happened to the American social contract, the bill of rights that said you can't discriminate against someone on the basis of wealth? Have we totally abandoned that? Abandoning the constitution is now the definition of a Conservative?

I never said conservatives hated poor people, quite the opposite. For one thing, I am a conservative. And a Republican. And it's my party too, whatever the neo-cons claim.

I did say that this readership generally had a very low opinion of the poor, and,be honest now, even a cursory scan of the comments here says that they do.

I mean, the unspoken assumption that that drug use is endemic to any particular segment of our population. I mean, really. Didn't that go out with the Great Gatsby?

Betty Ford isn't filled with the poor, y'know. And as the TV advertisement goes, if 40% of all drug users are in the city, where do you think the rest are?

Instead, we might talk about welfare recipients, or substance abusers, in which case Ms Galt's comments are at least somewhat justified.

I know that, I lived for 11 years on South King Drive in Chicago, a block from one of the the most dangerous high schools in the city and across the street from a housing project. I am under no illusions of exactly what horrors can occur. Statistics take on a whole new meaning when you know some of the numbers personally.

Lets try a thought experiment. I am a Gordon, Irish, German, Russian, and who knows what else (very broad minded family).

Particular emphasis on Irish. Suppose Ms Galt had said the main problem with the Irish was their addiction to alcohol and there tendency to violence, not making plans, and having too many kids. How many of you would be offended then? And how different is that than the general tone of the description of the poor in the readership's comments?

Someone said my original post was "bizarre". I suppose I should have expected a literary allusion to be picked up that easily. But think about it. How far are the comments from the sort that were made by pre Revolutionary French aristocrats?

More importantly, how many of them did it take to start the tumbrels rolling? The reason the founders insisted on equal rights was practical. They knew things change all the time, and a protection for someone else now is protection for them in the future.

randyjg2(at)yahoo.com

One big problem with many in the Republican party is their reliance on anecdote over statistics

Now that's just damned funny, given that it is the economic conservatives in this thread who are citing statistics and the left-wingers who are saying "oh yeah well I once knew a poor person who worked hard so obviously all the poor work hard".

What has happened to the American social contract, the bill of rights that said you can't discriminate against someone on the basis of wealth? Have we totally abandoned that

It never existed in the first place so, no, we didn't abandon it. There's nothing in the Bill of Rights forbidding discrimination on the basis of wealth. If there were, the estate tax and the progressive income tax would be unconstitutional.

Heck, when the United States was first established, poor people were generally not even allowed to vote.

Betty Ford isn't filled with the poor, y'know

That's because poor drug abusers go to prison instead of rehab. In any case, denying that the poor are more likely to be drug users is just silly. Drug abuse increases your risk of becoming poor (if you're middle class or wealthy) and of staying poor (if you were poor to start with). So naturally drug abusers are overrepresented among the poor, because drug abuse *creates* poor people.

Kilroy Was Here --

Strange. You see, The Bell Curve has a massive section on statistical correlations with poverty, yet I've never seen a liberal/Democrat respond with anything but anecdotal counter-evidence.

For example, let's say you are a white woman with children, who was born to the very poor (two standard deviations poorer than the average American). What are the chances that you are living in poverty? If you're not married, ~40%. If you are married, holding all other factors even, it's about 10%.

Now take white women with children, born to parents who were 2 standard deviations above mean in personal wealth. What's their chances of living in poverty? Holding all other factors steady with the above, ~2% if they're married, ~30% if unmarried.

So, a mother born poor but who has kids in wedlock is three times less likely to wind up poor than a mother born wealthy who has kids out of wedlock. Imagine, then, what would happen to poverty if we went back to 1950s sexual morality . . . .

Randy,

You said:
"Suppose Ms Galt had said the main problem with the Irish was their addiction to alcohol and there tendency to violence, not making plans, and having too many kids. How many of you would be offended then? And how different is that than the general tone of the description of the poor in the readership's comments?"

The problem with your "thought experiment", Randy, is that addiction to alcohol, a tendency to violence, not making plans, and having too many kids will not make someone Irish if they're not already.

However, addiction to alcohol, a tendency to violence, not making plans, and having too many kids could quite easily make someone poor.

Irish ethnicity is an inherited trait. Being poor or being wealthy are merely conditions, and they can be changed during the course of a person's life.

Do you get the difference here, Randy? One is a genetic trait that cannot be changed through behavior -- you're either Irish or you're not. The other is a condition that can to some degree be changed through behavior -- poor people don't necessarily have to stay poor, and rich people won't necessarily stay rich.

With your thought experiment you're making the standard Marxist class-warfare mistake: you're suggesting that being poor is as genetically unavoidable as e.g. being Irish or being tall. It's not.

No offense buddy, but the only one on this thread who sounds like the pre-Revolutionary French aristocracy is you. May I suggest you take your view that poverty is genetically unavoidable and go join that Hellfire Club you love talking about. Be careful though -- I understand nowadays it's mainly for BDSM fans.

And for the record, Randy, the Hellfire Club was English, not French.

What I still can't grasp is that some people actually believe that self-destructive behaviors aren't disproportionately common among the poor.

The only way that argument could hold up logically would be if you assumed that self-destructive behaviors (unmarried/unprepared childbearing, drug use, undereducation, etc., declining to work, etc.) have absolutely no negative economic effect. If those things have ANY negative effect at all, the result will be that poor people will have a relatively higher concentration of those behaviors.

There seems to be a misunderstanding that stating the above truism is equivalent to stating that ALL poor people got that way by being flakes. No -- but being foolish will tend to make you poor, with the result that, yes, a poor person has a higher statistical chance of having been a flake at some crucial time.

There are plenty of rich flakes, too; my Newport Beach classmates (I grew up on the wrong side of the Eucalyptus Curtain, so don't roll your eyes and assume I had everything handed to me) seemed to have a high incidence of alcoholism and drug abuse. The difference is that their inherited wealth gives them some limited protection from the consequences of flakiness -- but it also means that instead of adding to their families' wealth, they detract from it, and make it more likely that their own descendants will have either to make smart choices or suffer the consequences like everyone else.

You missed something important in your list.

Don't start smoking or taking drugs.

I'm sure there are more.

Poverty is a cycle that is not easy to break, but it can be done.

The poor spend, the rich invest.

What I still can't grasp is that some people actually believe that self-destructive behaviors aren't disproportionately common among the poor.

DRB basically nailed it; the problem is that too many people think of economic class as a social class -- something you're born into and never change. In their world the poor can't work their way out of poverty, the rich are always saved from the consequences of their actions, and the middle class either doesn't exist at all or is steadily being forced into poverty by the rich. Things like free will and personal choice just don't matter, in that world view, because people aren't actors -- only acted upon.

Here is a serious question, while I do believe that if individuals followed the Rx given by Ms. Gault, they would most likely avoid poverty. That’s because those “individuals” would be the few to break the cycle that Jane talked about and take on personal initiative where others won’t. But what if everyone woke up one morning and decided to embrace the values under discussion? How would that create more jobs with middle class wages?

I see the opposite happening, more people competing for full time work thus lowering the wages those jobs pay now. In fact you could argue that the reason many people hold on to a decent paying job is precisely because there are so many people accommodating enough to not pay attention to an alarm clock when its time to wake up in the morning.

The point I’m trying to make is that our consumer driven economy depends on a pretty large majority of people to not only take low wage jobs, but to avoid any activity that might make them qualified for higher paying jobs least they lower the wages employers are offering for those positions.

what Jane left out was intelligence. Intelligence predicts wealth better than anything. Poor people often suffer from low intelligence besides their lack of social network and inability to follow Jane's four action items.

And jobs aren't a zero-sum game. If everyone follows the advice plenty of people will create entire new industries that will spawn thousands, even millions of new jobs, then our economy will be able to absorb more low/moderate intelligence people that aren't capable of creating new things, but have some education and need a job so they can raise their 1 or 2 kids in a happy, drug-free marriage.

How would that create more jobs with middle class wages?

First of all, if all the poor people in America who do not currently embrace middle-class values suddenly did so tomorrow, most of those people would still stay poor. The reason is that they've *already* screwed up their lives by having kids out of wedlock, getting mixed up with drugs, dropping out of school, or what have you. It is their kids who would benefit, not them. So your scenario where suddenly an extra couple of million people enter the workforce overnight can't happen -- a high-school dropout who realizes he screwed up his life isn't qualified for any jobs that a high-school dropout who thinks The Man Is Keeping Him Down isn't qualified for.

Secondly: what's a "middle-class salary"? The median household income for the USA works out to a little over $10 an hour for a working couple. That's easily achievable with nothing more than a high school diploma. I made almost that much delivering pizza for Domino's fifteen years ago.

Thirdly, you make the common mistake of equating "service job" with "low wages". We have a service-driven economy, but that doesn't mean that Starbucks coffee-grinders and Wal-Mart cashiers are leading the way. There are countless middle-class service jobs: accountants, interior decorators, internet service providers, teachers, etc. Hell, doctors and lawyers, for that matter.

Fourthly -- and I'm almost sure that's actually a word -- people don't toss their wages into a Scrooge McDuck vault and swim around in the money. They spend the money on goods and services or invest it. Those goods have to be made by somebody, those services have to be provided by somebody, and those investments get used to create new businesses and hire new workers. Increasing the supply of middle-class people increases the demand for middle-class workers.

Rick Demint wrote:

I see the opposite happening, more people competing for full time work thus lowering the wages those jobs pay now. In fact you could argue that the reason many people hold on to a decent paying job is precisely because there are so many people accommodating enough to not pay attention to an alarm clock when its time to wake up in the morning.

The point I’m trying to make is that our consumer driven economy depends on a pretty large majority of people to not only take low wage jobs, but to avoid any activity that might make them qualified for higher paying jobs least they lower the wages employers are offering for those positions.

I don't know Rick ,we're importing a lot of skilled labor from overseas to take high skill jobs (Engineering, Pharmacy, Doctors, science, nursing) because we're not producing enough of them here at home. Perhaps we just wouldn't have to import so many (or any) if the poor suddenly all decided to invest in themselves. Plus, I could see foreign investment taking advantage of all that skilled human capital and creating jobs here in the US.

Statistics regarding race:

* Chances an applicant with a white sounding name is more likely to be called for an interview than an applicant with a black sounding name: 50%
* Percentage of black Americans who live below the poverty line: 29.3%
* Percentage of white Americans who live below the poverty line: 11.2%
* Percentage of black Americans in the United States: 12.3%
* Percentage of black elected officials in the United State: 1.6%
* Percentage of white Americans with a college degree: 24%
* Percentage of black Americans with a college degree: 13.2%
* Percentage of college professors who are black: 4.7%
* Median income for black Americans in 1995: $22,393
* Median income for white Americans in 1995: $35,766
* Median family net worth for white households: $43,800
* Median family net worth for black households: $3,700 (not a typo).
* Percentage of the country's regular drug users who are black: 13%
* Percentage of drug arrestees who are black: 35%
* Percentage of drug convictees who are black: 55%
* Percentage of those sentenced to prison who are black: 74%
* Percentage of white adults who think that average African-American is better off in terms of jobs than the average white: 58%
* Percentage of whites and blacks respectively in managerial or professional positions: 29% and 19%
* Percentage of whites and blacks respectively in low skilled service jobs: 13% and 23%

That's just the beginning. I have more.

According to a 1990 Survey of the National Opinion Research Center at the University of Chicago.

* Percentage of respondents who saw blacks as less intelligent: 53.2%
* Percentage of respondents who saw blacks as lazier than whites: 62.2%
* Percentage of respondents who thought blacks more likely than whites to prefer living on welfare: 77.7%
* Percentage of respondents who thought blacks more violent than whites: 56.1%

Now you have three choices to dertermine why this remarkable disparity (that has not changed since the 70s) exists:

1) Whites are genetically more inclined to have the skills necessary to be succesful in work. Blacks are in some sense genetically inferior to whites. There is nothing we can do.

2) Black culture is keeping blacks down.

3) American culture and American institutions have some sort of structural flaw that effects blacks negatively.

Now, given that we all agree that the first option has no effect on the placement of blacks in America. I'd argue that reason (2) above contributes about 10% towards the plight of blacks in America and reason (3) above contributes about 90% towards the plights of blacks in America.

My hypothesis is that since non-black America has much more power, controls all of the government insititutions, controls 99% of the private institutions, etc. that non-black America has a much greater effect on black America.

KWH

PS As for the Bell Curve, I don't believe that most scientists find the argument scientifically compelling.

KWH

KWH,

The only problem with that hypothesis is that Asians faced similar prejudice and actually have higher incomes than whites, who dominate America and etc. You might look at actual statistics on black violence (esp. vs. Asian) violence vs. statistics on people's opinions.

Switch that 90/10 around and you'll be much closer to correct.

KWH,

You know, I'm really amazed anyone can take c) seriously as an argument with all the affirmative action in hiring and college entrance exams. Those are structural issues that promote blacks and penalize whites and Asians.

You might check out statistics on what % of blacks choose to pursue accounting or engineering or computer science degrees. The only blacks I ever met in those degree courses were non-American blacks, or 1st-gen black immigrants who hadn't assimilated into that negative self-stereotyping "blacks can only entertain or play sports" culture. People choose what courses to take; nonblacks certainly don't dictate that. It's a cultural issue.

Chances an applicant with a white sounding name is more likely to be called for an interview than an applicant with a black sounding name: 50%

Actually, the study in question didn't compare black names to white names. It compared normal names to weird names. Most blacks have normal names. A valid study would have either compared common black names to common white names, or uncommon white names ("Rainbow", "Moon Unit", etc) to the uncommon black ones from the original study. As it is, all the study succeeded in showing was that weird people get discriminated against; no shit.

* Percentage of respondents who saw blacks as less intelligent: 53.2%
* Percentage of respondents who saw blacks as lazier than whites: 62.2%
* Percentage of respondents who thought blacks more likely than whites to prefer living on welfare: 77.7%
* Percentage of respondents who thought blacks more violent than whites: 56.1

Hm. The average black person works less than the average white person, has a lower IQ, less education, is more likely to be on welfare, and is six times more likely to commit murder. You can blame these problems on culture (and you'd almost certainly be right). But those problems still exist, so faulting people for recognizing their existance is unfair. In America today, the average black man IS dumber, lazier, and more violent than the average white, Asian, or Hispanic man. Our focus should be on facing the social problems that cause that fact to exist -- not on denying the existance of that fact.

Anyway, might I ask why you left off the statistics for unwed motherhood, high school completion, and full-time work among blacks and whites? Oh, wait -- because all of those support Jane's point, that's why. :)

Oh, and one final note: what's the point of all the statistics showing that black criminals get treated more harshly than white criminals? Unless you're arguing that most blacks are involved in criminal enterprise, the harsh treatment of black criminals shouldn't hold the majority of blacks back in any way.

Megan,

Good post. I really appreciate your talent and many of your other posts are excellent. I fear you suffer from a common misperception among many who were raised in affluent households regarding children who are raised with less wealth. Some of the root causes you assume are almost insurmountable are actually not that difficult, and many of the most difficult things are those that are so esoteric they are difficult to communicate.

I don’t know you, but I can assure you that you would have not succumb to peer pressure and done any of the things you imagine you would have had you lived in an environment where those things were the societal norm. Character counts for a great deal. If your parents had less material wealth but your parents had the same morals and cared for you in the same manner you would have steered clear of the evils of your peer group. Most of the people in my High School dropped out and took drugs. Pregnancies were not uncommon. I was popular, active, not an outcast, and did none of those things.

The part you miss is it is as difficult for a poor or blue collar individual to imagine what it is like to be affluent, or white collar, as it is for you to imagine the opposite. That is where the real obstacles arose for me. Also, many of us who rise up the economic ladder do it in isolation. Not only are we not mentored by family, often we are spurned by them because they resent the world we are entering. It is difficult to explain, but maybe this story will help:

When the movie “A Field of Dreams” came out a co-worker urged me to see it. I did, and when I next saw him he eagerly asked me how I liked it. I answered, “It was alright.” He looked confused. Obviously the movie had made a tremendous positive impact on him. He asked, “Didn’t it make you think about your Father, and how great it would be to meet him at the same age you are now?” I answered, “No, it hadn’t occurred to me.” And, it hadn’t.

I thought about his question later and I realized that if I could perform that experiment this is literally how it would pan out:
I would have to walk into a bar, because if I wanted to see my Dad when he was 30 that is where I would have to go. At 30 I had two Undergraduate degrees and a Masters degree, was fluent in a foreign language, was a self trained musician and in good enough shape to run a marathon. I wore suits to work (a desk job), and ties with matching suspenders (I was 30 in the early 90’s). If a guy like me walked into my dad’s bar my old man would have taken a swing at him before he was through the door. My dad grew up hating guys like me. When I left home to go to College my mom was so overwhelmed she literally left my father and sister in an attempt to get me to come back home.

Those are the types of things that make it a struggle. I remember sitting in my dorm room freshman year and listening to my roommates gripe about having a lot of homework. I had just gotten off the telephone with my sister. She was in tears because nobody knew where my mother was and my sister was now stuck at home with my father and my mother’s leaving gave him a reason to drink even more. I hung up the telephone and was trying to decide if leaving to find my mother would help, or hurt the situation. What were the odds my father would really hurt my sister? If I do leave how can I take my final exams? On top of all that I was working several jobs and never sure how I would pay the bills from semester to semester. I don’t think my roommates could even sense I was unhappy, and here they were having a bitch session about how much homework they had. They were all from white collar families. They wouldn’t understand, and they would think less of me if they knew the reality of my life.

Those are the types of things that make it tough. It’s not keeping your nose clean, or acing the exams, or paying for College. It’s learning how to relate to a white collar world, and, even more difficult, learning to accept success. And, most difficult of all, having to learn these things without letting on that you are making it up as you go along.

It is difficult to relate my childhood to people who were not raised in similar circumstances. Almost any anecdotal information I can give makes it sound bad.
An example: my father’s only advice to me concerning drugs, “Boy, I’m sure glad all this stuff wasn’t available when I was in High School or I would have been lit up like a Christmas tree all day long.” True story. Does that mean I did drugs? No. It was obvious to me that was not gong to help me leave my neighborhood.
Yet, in reality it was not as bad as it sounds. My parents loved me. We still have a great relationship. My dad has learned that some guys with College degrees are not all bad, and although he’s never said it I think he’s even proud of me.

There is an analogy I use regarding my childhood, “I was working without a net.” When I went to High School and College I felt like I had one shot, and one shot only. I wasn’t going to blow it. In some ways that is a disadvantage (I had to mainly figure it out on my own), but in many ways it is a benefit. I often think it is harder for the kids who have a big safety net. It must be harder for them to focus.

It sounds like you had a large safety net, yet you pushed yourself to do well in school. Despite what you think you would have done the same in my neighborhood. Do not minimize your accomplishments because your family had money. You still had to do the work, and you did. All reasonably intelligent people know selfish behavior is not productive. All reasonably intelligent people know sacrificing long term goals for short term gain is not a winning strategy. That’s not what makes it difficult. It’s having the guts to forge out on one’s own, with few examples of how to do it, and often against the disdain of others that presents the challenges.

Do not feel guilty about your upbringing and do not condescend to children raised with limited material wealth. It is up to each one of us to do what we desire with our own lives and there is no amount of money that can magically imbue any one of us with the skills necessary to achieve what we desire. We all travel that road alone.

George,

I can't pretend I was born into tough circumstances; my upbringing was as generically middle-middle-middle-class as a childhood could be.

But that wasn't true for my ancestry. My parents were the first in their families to attend college, my grandparents started out working class, and my great-grandparents -- the ones I know about -- started out poor. They were able to imagine better lives for themselves because their parents and the American society they lived in *told* them they could have better lives. A big part of the middle-class American Dream is that no matter what kind of life YOU have, your children can have a better one.

So I don't think the problem is that working-class people can't imagine things getting better. I think the problem is that there's a loud and obnoxious segment of American society that lies to those people and TELLS them that things can't get any better because they were born into the wrong race or economic class. It is easy for a kid to imagine himself as a banker if his parents and his society tell him "if you wanted to, and worked hard enough, you could be a banker". It's very hard to imagine when you hear nothing but assholes telling you nonsense like "banks don't hire black people" and "what, working construction ain't good enough for you?".

You had to travel that road alone, but there's no reason why everyone has to.

Dan,

I agree with you. The shortage of blacks in high professional positions is due to a subculture that tells their young that their future prospects are limited and that to cooperate with the elite class (i.e., whites)is betrayal to the community. I look around me at the quite large architectural office and wonder why it's close to impossible to recruit young black architects. Every other ethnic is well represented, with asians overrepresented. Is it because it never occured to black parents that their child could become an architect?

George,

I enjoyed your post a lot, and I admire individuals like you who overcame so many odds, as it makes me feel guilty of not having done enough with myself. Though I consider my background as middle class, my cultural background was exceptional and endowed me with many advantages. My family has endured hard times, even being on foodstamps for a brief period, and having to wear hand-me downs thoughout much of my childhood. Through it all, it was the strenght of my parents' character and their high expectations of their seven children that ensured the success that all of them have subsequently earned.

I have posted my own reflections on why poverty is as much about choices than about circumstances my blog www.architectureandmorality.blogspot.com

Quibble:

Doing things that prevent you from attaining material success outside the group can become an important sign off loyalty to the group...

Sign off loyalty? Or sign of?

I scratched my head a couple of times because I wasn't sure what you were saying.

As for the Bell Curve, I don't believe that most scientists find the argument scientifically compelling

First, which argument? The Bell Curve is an 800+ page book that explores several different arguments.

Second, what argument? I simply quoted statistical data, which one can acquire through simple mathematical techniques applied to the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth. The data are what they are. They were merely presented in The Bell Curve.

TallDave -

you say
The only problem with that hypothesis is that Asians faced similar prejudice and actually have higher incomes than whites, who dominate America and etc. You might look at actual statistics on black violence (esp. vs. Asian) violence vs. statistics on people's opinions.

Actually, Asians tend have the same sort of experience as Jews and other immigrant communities.

But I don't think anyone would argue that Asians suffered from similar prejudice.

Let's just consider the following:

1) Slavery
2) Lynching
3) Voter Suppression
4) Education Suppression
5) Economic Discrimination

I think it's fair to say that black Americans throughout the history of the United States have suffered more prejudice than other minorities, but that the prejudice they suffered is of a whole different level.

Switch that 90/10 around and you'll be much closer to correct.

Why do you think so? I gave a reason why I thought that non-black America would have a greater influence on black Americans than black America. (i.e. the control of power, access to jobs, control of resources, control of insitutions, etc.).

You just state your point without even providing a theory.

I'll try and anticipate some of your points:

* Acting white - You'll probably say something along the lines that black culture suppresses the performance of blacks. I'll by into this and say it has some effect. But as dramatic effects as we see in this poll? Finally, is this 'acting white' thing real or media exaggeration? I haven't seen a lot of evidence on this.

* Drugs - You'll probably say that drug culture and gangs effect black Americans disporportionality, but as we see in the stats I posted above, blacks are no more or less likely to be involved in drugs than whites. However, blacks are far more likely to be incarcerated by the judicial system than whites.

* Violence - Again, I don't know much about it, but I'd love to here theories on how *exactly* violence can lead to twice the poverty rates, 2/3rds the pay, etc.

* Out of wedlock births - I agree that this has an effect, but again, I wouldn't say it's the greatest effect on black Americans disparity in the share of goods.

Here's my thoughts on why black Americans have the hardest time escaping poverty of all racial classes.

If you look at the stats above you'll see that the net worth of white Americans is over 12 times black Americans. White Americans find the majority of net worth in their homes. In most neighborhoods, real estate has grown at a good clip over the last 70 years (4-6% nationally); however, in black neighborhoods, homes as an asset have negative growth. This is in neighborhoods with similarly demographics in terms of class and income.

Since black Americans have been unable to have houses that will pass on to their children, they haven't had the same transfer of wealth and growth of wealth between generations that white Americans have.

I would argue that the markets reluctance to move into homes in predominately black neighborhoods have had a far greater effect on the ability of black Americans to escape poverty than any aspect of 'black culture.'

My mind is open though. Prove me wrong.

Hm. The average black person works less than the average white person, has a lower IQ, less education, is more likely to be on welfare, and is six times more likely to commit murder.

If by working less, you mean that they have an unemployment rate that's higher, I'd agree. The question is, what's the cause of that?

Lower IQ? Why do you think this is? IQ is usually attempted to measure intelligence not education. Do you feel that blacks are genetically less intelligent than whites?

Less education - Well, most poor people have less education. It's a lot harder to get through a 4 year degree when your poor. Graduation rates among the students whose families are in the lowest quintile of income are far far lower than any other class.

In any case, while I'm not assenting to any of your claims, what do you think the causes of this are?

Lower IQ? Why do you think this is? IQ is usually attempted to measure intelligence not education. Do you feel that blacks are genetically less intelligent than whites?

At the risk of getting flamed here, there has been research done that might suggest that this is the case, yes. Similar research has also found Asian people to have higher average IQs than whites.

Just thought I'd lob that in (and no, I can't be bothered to find links right now: if 3.30 in the morning and I'm tired)...

DK

Lower IQ? Why do you think this is? IQ is usually attempted to measure intelligence not education. Do you feel that blacks are genetically less intelligent than whites?

Because edcuation helps to foster development and growth in a person's intelligence?

My own parents simply decided there would be no television set in our household, and they read books to me frequently long before I was able to do so on my own. They also stayed on top of what and how well I was doing in school, without conveying the impression of control-freakishness. I wouldn't mind hazarding a wild guess that those three factors alone are worth at least twenty points of my present IQ.

Now, what about a person raise in environs where such influences are reduced or not present?

Let's just consider the following:
1) Slavery

Ended six generations ago

2) Lynching

Hispanics and Asians were also subjected to lynching. As were poor whites, for that matter.

3) Voter Suppression
4) Education Suppression
5) Economic Discrimination

All illegal as of two generations ago. Got any excuses that are less than 35 years old?

If by working less, you mean that they have an unemployment rate that's higher, I'd agree. The question is, what's the cause of that?

The main cause is that much of modern black culture places a low value on education (which is referred to as "wanting to be white") and hard work.

Lower IQ? Why do you think this is? IQ is usually attempted to measure intelligence not education. Do you feel that blacks are genetically less intelligent than whites?

If you believe that intelligence is completely genetic then you must necessarily believe that blacks are inherently dumber than whites (and Chinese people inherently smarter). However, there is good evidence that intelligence is partly a product of environment, and that cultures which place a low emphasis on intellectual achievement therefore produce dumber people. Noticed many redneck Nobel Prize winners lately? Me neither, but I doubt that's genetic. So the answer to your question is "the lower average IQs of black Americans are quite possibly the result of black culture's disdain for intellectual pursuits".

Less education - Well, most poor people have less education

Sorry, that doesn't explain it. Blacks have twice the high school dropout rate that whites do, and high school's free. Anyone with a high school education can earn enough to be middle class unless they do something to screw that up.

Graduation rates among the students whose families are in the lowest quintile of income are far far lower than any other class.

Obviously; families in that quintile place a lot less emphasis on education. That's the major reason they're in that quintile in the first place. However, even compared to people of the same income level, black Americans have lower graduation rates, higher illegitimacy rates, and higher rates of criminal activity. There's a cultural problem there that goes well beyond simple economic need.

In any case, while I'm not assenting to any of your claims, what do you think the causes of this are?

Lack of personal responsibility, primarily due to a black culture's belief that (a) they can't improve their situation and (b) their problems are white peoples' fault. Blacks who disdain the culture of irresponsibility and embrace middle-class values do extremely well. That's why black immigrants do just as well as white immigrants -- they weren't raised in Victim Culture.

You see, if you dehumanize a group of people, you will be far more tolerant of discriminatory behavior against that group.

You will take notice how many posters to this thread believe that African Americans are "inferior" beings genetically. That's the dictionary definition of RACISM, no matter how many pages of research by white authors you can produce to defend the hypothesis. Those who make such statements should admit that they are indeed racist, and let their inner demons speak freely.

As far as "black culture" vs. "white culture", from what ERA does one wish African Americans emulate whites, since slavery, genocidal slaughter of Native Americans, Jim Crow, and other markers highlight 'WHITE CULTURE?"
Can somebody get ahead by just taking what one wants and making laws that justify such barbarism? Sure. That WAS white culture for centuries in America, as plundered wealth was amassed. I challenge any of the "whites got everything they earned through hardwork" folks in here to justify the Homestead Act of 1862.

There is still rampant job, housing, lending and law enforcement discrimination against African Americans, and maybe some can get away with dismissing these factors unchallenged on other blogs. I guarantee it won't go unchallenged on any blog I post to.

--Cobra

You are such a deep thinker. And you're compassion truly floors us (speaking of floors). Blaming the working poor for their poverty. Yes, it is true, in most cases they're poor because they are stupid and lazy.

And you, George Bush and other spoiled rich kids are smart and hard working because y'all inherited all that money.

Kind of funny that this article appears a few columns down from your post about reading fantasy-fiction and Enders Game while vacationing in London.

We have no problem with your vacation plans but y'all got to tone down this humble little middle class girl stuff. You're a University of Chicago, Ayn Rand "Virtues of Selfishness", "I talk about economics but I don't know nothing about the practical, daily ins and outs of business because all I did was study business in college", rich kid. But apparently not rich enough that you can avoid doing menial work for hire for the Instapundit. Upon reflection, we guess that really does qualify you to comment on the lives of the working poor.

Come back and visit us some time.

Q -

What's the most reliable predictor of poverty in the US?

A-

Out of wedlock birth.

Q -

What's the % of black children born out of wedlock

A -

68.4%

Q -

What's the % of black children born out of wedlock in NO

A -

estimated at over 80%

Of course, that's somebody elses fault too.

Some of the responses to my inquiry left me a bit cold. The response about the fact that the economy is not a zero sum game is true, what is also true is that the economy is not bandwidth on demand, so while "the market" corrects in the long run, in the long run we're all dead. At any given time the market has a lot of zero sum elements. Resources can only be extracted so far, so fast. Manufacturing capability can only be developed according to the available supply of capital and resources and so on.

The economy is not bandwidth on demand.

What I am trying to get at is this, during the depression the pathologies of out of wedlock births, single parents, and lack of work ethic among the poor was really a mere shadow of what it is today, yet there were still all of these poor people. How does that square with Jane’s thesis?

Again if individuals follow the Rx it is likely they will succeed but my suspicion is that it only works against a backdrop of a sea of people who are suffering from the various pathologies described. The claim that if “the poor” suddenly woke up and shook off these pathologies and started to live the values described would suddenly create all of the economic expansion seems to me to be contradicted by any number of historical examples.

What I want someone to explain is how we can have an economy that distributes wealth with a very few holding unimaginable wealth, a larger majority with comfortable to opulent wealth without a significant minority (15-25%) laboring in a permanent and intractable underclass?

Or to out it more succinctly, doesn’t our consumer driven brand of capitalism *require* a permanent and intractable underclass so that others can live in opulent to unimaginable wealth? If you don’t agree tell me how it is possible.

Hey, Cobra:

Don't you think 'racism' is a loaded enough word that you don't have to use capital letters? I mean, in the world of daily discourse, it's like a hand grenade or maybe even an atom bomb. Why stop at capitals? I mean, you could go further like this: RACISM or better yet, RACISM!!!!!

Just askin'.

What I want someone to explain is how we can have an economy that distributes wealth with a very few holding unimaginable wealth, a larger majority with comfortable to opulent wealth without a significant minority (15-25%) laboring in a permanent and intractable underclass?

Or to out it more succinctly, doesn’t our consumer driven brand of capitalism *require* a permanent and intractable underclass so that others can live in opulent to unimaginable wealth? If you don’t agree tell me how it is possible.

I'm not an expert in economic theory, so I don't know if it's possible to have a captialistic soceity like ours without an underclass. My guess would be no. I still think we should try to change the culture of the underclass to try and save those that we can from the underclass.

I think we owe everyone in this country the ability to remove themselves from the underclass should they choose to work hard enough to do so. There are barriers to this movement, to be sure. The point being is that in this country, despite the barriers, you can move out of the underclass if you want to (barring major setbacks like major illnesses, mental illness, or other catastrophes).

It's my opinion that the culture and/or attitudes of the underclass is the biggest of those obstacles. I personally think the black poor in this country trap themselves in an endless cycle of poverty through a poisonous culture of educational disdainment (acting white), irresponsible reproduction and the constant drumbeat that their fate is out of their hands (whitey is holding you down so there's no point in trying). But white folks like me aren't allowed to tell them this. The reform of these behaviors has to come from black leadership.

But let me ask you a question. What system would you replace our current one with? Communism, socialism? European style socialism is not a cure-all you know. It has serious warts itself. Just check the latest European unemployment numbers and the strain their huge welfare budgets are putting on their people.

My sister lived in France for a year. She laughs when she hears people knock the U.S. system and pine for European style socialism. Her answer is always "Why don't you actually try living in Europe or some other country before you tell me how bad it sucks here. Cause I'll tell you, it's much better in the U.S. than it is anywhere else."

Dan:

You talk about the extreme acts against blacks (slavery, voting rights suppression, education suppression, etc.) ending generations or decades ago, and that it shouldn't have an effect today.

In fact, I'd argue that it does in how wealth gets transferred from generation to generation. As I mentioned in my previous post, asset growth among real estate in black neighborhoods have very small rates of growth (negative real growth) when compared with neighborhoods of similar incomes and similar demographics in non-black neighborhoods.

Growth of net worth and transfer of wealth in the form of inheritance is one of the main reasons recipients of the GI Bill after WWII were able to move their children in the Baby Boom generation (and their grandchildren).

Given that the growth of net worth effects ones options in education, in employment, in opportunities in probably a greater way than any other single factor, I think that would have a greater effect than any cultural artifact.

What do you think?

KWG

Regarding IQ: IQ is pretty much fixed at birth, environment being a modest factor, if any--otherwise kids with Downs Syndrome could be treated with heavy intellectual stimulus. The Bell Curve documents this pretty carefully. Put differently, if there was a known method for significantly inhancing IQ, it would be the hottest thing on the market. Environment is a huge factor in putting IQ to work.

Cobra writes:

"There is still rampant job, housing, lending and law enforcement discrimination against African Americans"

Sorry, this either is entirely untrue in most respects or grossly overstated with respect to law enforcement. Worse, it is making excuses for people who don't need excuses. They need motivation and to get their lives in order. On housing, jobs and credit, when you control for education and credit rating, there is no meaningful statistical difference between whites and blacks. You are the proponent of this thesis, so prove me wrong.

Further, Cobra wonders how, if having children out of wedlock is a solid marker for poverty, then why were so many people in poverty during the depression.

Answer: because it was a freaking depression. When the economy turned on, they went back to work and lived happily ever after.

Dan:

You say:
Lack of personal responsibility, primarily due to a black culture's belief that (a) they can't improve their situation and (b) their problems are white peoples' fault.

Other than popular perception or anecdotal evidence, I've never seen any good evidence that 1) this belief exists in higher rates among blacks than whites, 2) that it's existed for the last 50 years, 3) that it has an effect on income and/or net worth.

This is a fairly extradornary claim that 35 million Americans subscribe to as a whole. I think it demands some extraordinary proof.

Can you cite some for me? Again, my mind is open. However, the more I engage this argument, the more I become convinced that economic forces outside of black Americans control have more to do with their higher rates of poverty than otherwise.

(To just point out how economic conditions outside of an individuals control might have a greater impact on someone's quality of life, you'd only have to look at immigrants quality of life before they came to this country and after. If the same person with the same beliefs can achieve a much higher quality of life in one location than in another, then there must be some factors beyond their control in both locations that effect their quality of life.)

KWG

Jack writes:

Q -

What's the most reliable predictor of poverty in the US?

A-

Out of wedlock birth.

Citation please.

And is the causative or correlative. In other words, out of wedlock births is certainly higher in black Americans. Daniel Moynihan mentioned that. But divorce is higher in white Americans.

But black Americans are more likely to be poorer than white Americans in all family states. In other words, whether they are single parents, married, or childless, a black American is more likely to be poor than a white American.

So is out-of-wedlock birth an indicator of poverty or just an indicator of being black.

In other words, since a person is more than twice as likely to be in poverty if their black, isn't being black the most reliable predictor of poverty in the US?

KWH

Kilroy,

OK, maybe I'm missing the boat on your wealth-transfer point. Let's assume your point about homes in African American neighborhoods not appreciating is true (I haven't seen any stats to say it is, but I'll run with it for now).

So, what you're saying, is African Americans don't break out of poverty because they don't inherit wealth as much as white people do because their homes don't appreciate.

Do I have that right?

If so, how old are most people when their parents die and leave them everything. I don't know any stats on this, but take me for example. I am a scion of a middle class family. As middle class as they come. My father bought a house in 1976 for about $45,000 in CT. It's probably worth $300,000 today. Great, right? This is probably the reason why I've done well, right? But, my dad's not dead and neither is my Mom. I haven't seen one penny of that wealth growth, and I'm 34 (or will be soon).

Are you saying white kids parents die early and give them tons of money, allowing them to avoid poverty? Unless I'm some kind of weird outlier (and all of my friends), I don't think it quite works that way.

Or maybe I've completely missed your point, but I'm sticking with cultural issues as the main problem for blacks.

One other thing about this out-of-wedlock birth stats:

Hispanics and whites have very similar rates of non-married families, yet hispanics are more likely to be poor than whties. Comments?

Hispanics and whites have very similar rates of non-married families, yet hispanics are more likely to be poor than whties. Comments?

What percentage of Hispanics don't speak English? Odds are if you can't speak English in this country, you're poor.

'Hispanics and whites have very similar rates of non-married families, yet hispanics are more likely to be poor than whties. '

How many are first generation immigrants from dirt poor countries?

My sister lived in France for a year. She laughs when she hears people knock the U.S. system and pine for European style socialism. Her answer is always "Why don't you actually try living in Europe or some other country before you tell me how bad it sucks here. Cause I'll tell you, it's much better in the U.S. than it is anywhere else."
Posted by Paul

I lived in France for nearly a decade. It's better there.

My answer to you purple, then, is why didn't you stay?

Also, care to elaborate a little?

Gosh, loads of comments...and most well thought through. I am going to have to visit here more often.

There is so much of the original essay (blog) that I agree with, I hate bringing up the two things that came to mind as a read.

1) The idea that "the poor" are made up from people who have not finished high school, don't get married before having children, have more than two children, and don't work full time is a bit of a straw man ("straw poor man"). I would beg to differ on the description of the poor given at the beginning of this essay. Some poor fit the description; but many do not. Plus I'd argue that there are still many who are in the catagory of legitimately poor (at or below the poverty level and/or the working poor) who actually fulfill the four things "the poor ought to be doing" listed above--and yet, they are still poor.
2) No doubt there are sociological, behaviorial, and even group-affimation characterists that hinder "the poor" from fulfilling the "4 to dos" and thus hinder their upward mobility. My programs seek to address these areas. While money isn't the answer, certainly no-money is as well not an answer. I work toward taking bits out of the "Poor system" and moving some toward independence and upward mobility. Some is better than nothing. And eventually helps the whole.

I know for a fact that we need to invest in preschool for the rural and urban poor--facts are that those with preschool litercy and education do far better than those who do not. Second, facts are such that we need to find ways for the poor to own their homes, own their apartments (co-ops, whatever), for we know that home ownership moves people toward responsible characteristics/behaviors and its easier to pass these characteristics down to the next generation as they move up(ward). Another thing I would implement is that rural and urban children whose parents are part of the services (cash or programs) of a State's social service department, ought to be connected to social workers throughout their school experience and the parents need to (as a requirement of assistance) be involved with family enrichment training, parenting skills training, employment, community college, and have individualized family plans that demonstrate involvment with their child's school experience. Ah, but that costs money.

Paul says:

So, what you're saying, is African Americans don't break out of poverty because they don't inherit wealth as much as white people do because their homes don't appreciate.

Do I have that right?

Yes but not completely. Housing equity (as we all know) can be used well before death. Housing equity financed my wife's education at Stanford. Housing equity has financed many people's start up in their own businesses or their children's businesses.

Since people can take a loan against their rising assets to invest in the future, it's important for their biggest asset (their house) to appreciate.

Black housing doesn't appreciate. Thus, black parents can't take out loans to send their children to Stanford. Black property taxes are lower so black schools don't get as much funding. Black's can't use mortgages to finance small businesses. ETc. etc. etc.

KWH

Another potential cause of black poverty.

Most of you cite the lack of education among blacks as one of the chief drivers of their poverty.

Well, let's look historically.

The greatest indicator of a child's education level is their parents' esducation level. Children of college graduates are more likely to become college graduates, for example.

The one time in our history when this wasn't the case was during the late 40s and 50s. During this time, a massive government subsidy program (the GI Bill) did more to increase the number of college graduates across all economic classes than any other program in history.

Unfortunately, blacks were unable to participate in this program due to the legal restrictions of blacks in college admissions programs.

Since blacks couldn't go to college in the same numbers as whites, black children didn't have parents who went to college, and thus, were less likely to go to college.

And the cycle continues.

As with the lack of appreciation in housing prices among black neighborhoods, I would argue that blacks restrictions from taking advantage of the GI Bill program in the 40s, 50s, and most of the 60s, put them at a distinct disadvantage and had a much greater effect than supposed black cultural influences regarding responsibility or acting white or any of that.

KWH

TO: Randy Gordon
RE: Posturing

STD. FORM: MORAL POSTURING 1C (ADVANCED ED.)

A: Sob stories? - CHECK

B: Includes cats/kittens/puppies? - CHECK

C: Includes massive posturing/aspirations to moral superiority/ethical masturbation? - CHECK CHECKITY CHECK

'I know for a fact '

No - you believe in theory. I don't happen to agree with you and I can cite reasons and statistics why but it doesn't make my beliefs any more facts than yours are.

"Now, given that we all agree that the first option has no effect on the placement of blacks in America."

Incorrect. There is a very large (and growing) body of work on both IQ, as well as the intelligence disparity between different racial groups.

Here are two excellent introductions to the topic, the first more general, the second more specialized:

http://www.commentarymagazine.com/production/files/murray0905.html

http://www.ssc.uwo.ca/psychology/faculty/rushtonpdfs/PPPL1.pdf

And big genetic news in recent days is starting to make the genetic explanation look increasingly credible:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/08/science/08cnd-brain.html?ei=5094&en=7f83ee9b96d40611&hp=&ex=1126238400&adxnnl=0&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1126212523-Sy51vhmKhac0/YQeUBpASA&pagewanted=all

http://www.gnxp.com/blog/uploaded_images/MCPH1-37,000-722163.JPG

http://www.gnxp.com/blog/uploaded_images/ASPM%20-%205,800-787176.JPG

"* Percentage of respondents who saw blacks as less intelligent: 53.2%

* Percentage of respondents who saw blacks as lazier than whites: 62.2%

* Percentage of respondents who thought blacks more likely than whites to prefer living on welfare: 77.7%

* Percentage of respondents who thought blacks more violent than whites: 56.1"

As all four propositions are backed by relevant statistics easily confirmed by anyone with an internet connection, all this really tells us is that 20-50 percent of the respondents were either dishonest or uninformed.

Kilroy, I would argue that any black student who achieved enough academically to get into Stanford who can't find a scholarship to pay the full freight for 4 years just isn't trying hard enough.

Second, who says you have to go to Stanford to achieve middle class life? I went to a state school (UConn) that is subsidized by taxpayers and at the time (early '90's) was incredibly cheap for in-state students. Could I have gone to a "Better" school? Sure, I got into UPenn. Buy my Dad told me in no uncertain terms he was NOT tapping his home equity to pay for that (what with 2 other kids to send to school) and since I was not a PC minority, I got next to no scholarship offers.

Given the choice between crushing student loan debt and state school, I choose state school. I'm doing rather well for myself today.

Which leads me to student loans. If you really want to go to college and your parents can't pay for you, you could always go this route. I know a LOT of people who paid their own freight to college, mostly on loans. My sister went to law school on her own dime. She now owes, oh, $135K or so.

Third, black families, assuming their homes are NOT appreciating (I still haven't seen any stats) could still tap their existing equity to pay for their kids, if they feel they must pay.

KWH-

You are making the mistake a lot of people make regarding the level of privilege among white Americans.

In the affirmative action context, the argument goes something like this: "I'll get rid of racial preferences if you get rid of legacy preferences..." thereby implying that the two are equal; for every minority student who gets a AA prefernece on account of his skin color, there is a George Bush out there who gets a legacy preference becuase Dad and Grandpa both went to Yale. The problem with this argument is that the overwhelming majority of white people don't get legacy preferences. The average white person has nothing in common with priviliged elites like John Kerry, Al Gore, Howard Dean, Ted Kennedy, and John Rockefeller. Also, most white Americans do not attend elite colleges; the average person attends Southwest Oklahoma State where legacy preferences count for nothing. And of those white people who do attend Ivy Legaue schools, most aren't legacies. They are just bright upper-middle-class kids who got good grades and SAT scores. Their ancestors haven't attended that college for six generations and no buildings are named after their family. Conversely, the average minority student at elite colleges does benefit from affirmative action. They do have grades and test scores that are lower than those of white students. Tragically, some of the minority students do have the grades and the test scores needed to compete, but they are tarred with the stigma of affirmative action because their peers aren't as qualified.

The same is true with regard to wealth. Most white Americans aren't wealthy. They live in cookie cutter tract homes in generic suburban and rural neighborhoods. They live paycheck-to-paycheck and drive eight year-old Dodge minivans, shop at Pick N' Save, and vacation at the Wisconsin Dells. These days most don't have much home equity.

These people have no "wealth." They can't afford to pay for a Stanford education. Even Catholic school is a huge sacrifice.

They aren't taking out home equity loans to enable their kids to start up businesses, either. And if they did it wouldn't be much of a business. Heck, a Baskin-Robbins franchise (one of the cheaper ones becuase real estate, labor, and equipment costs are low -- all you need is some freezers) costs around $300k. The average middle-class family doesn't have anywhere near $300k in home equity.

Paul had it right. The average white person doesn't inherit a dime from their parents until the parents pass away. This often happens when the kids are in their 50's. When mom and dad pass on they generally leave miniscule estates, hardly enough to secure a future for thier kids.

You are really overestimating the wealth of the average white family. The average white family lives in a suburb of St. Louis, MO, and consists of a trucking dispather, a dental hygenist, and 3 kids. These people are not "wealthy" and they don't pass much of anything in the way of monetary wealth down to their kids. What they do is provide a stable home and teach the kids the value of morality, hard work, and education.

Now, even if there are large genetic factors behind poverty in the United States, that does not mean that nothing can be done about it. Some suggestions:

1.) Nanny-stateism. Mandatory health & nutrition check-ups, state-funded healthcare for poor people, with semi-mandatory elements. Re-introduction of institutionalisation for the mentally ill.

2.) Cultural conservatism & 'targeted authoritarianism'. Marriage encouragement, banning or suppressing various forms of culture (Gangsta Rap, anyone?), strict schools, including corporal punishment, etc.

3.) Workfare. Do NOT give people more money not to work - pay them extra to work instead. Supplement incomes of the working poor.

4.) Eliminate all non-skilled immigration. This will in turn reduce the load on social services (mostly needed by poor people), and will increase wages in unskilled jobs.

Listen, the Stanford thing was an example. Shouldn't focus there.

As for citations, here's one from University of Michigan:

"Blacks' confinement to segregated neighborhoods systematically reduces their access to investment opportunities. The middle class invests the largest share of its wealth in housing equity, which amounts to 43% of white assets and 63% percent of black assets. Confined to less-desired neighborhoods, blacks attain a much lower average rate of return on their housing investment than do whites. The current generation of black homeowners has, as of 1990, suffered a cumulative loss of $58 billion for this reason.Because creditworthiness depends on wealth, blacks' lower home values mean they are less able to obtain credit on favorable terms than otherwise equally qualified whites: The current generation of blacks has suffered a cumulative loss of $24 billion due to denial of mortgages and higher mortgage interest rates. (See Melvin Oliver & Thomas Shapiro, Black Wealth/White)""

As for how that effects business ownership, take a look at what the University of Michigan says again:

""Lack of access to credit is a major cause of low rates of black entrepreneurship. (see Low Housing Values above) Among all privately owned U.S. businesses, half were started by their owners; the other half were inherited or purchased. By contrast, 94% of black-owned businesses are self-started (centuries of discrimination and segregation have left blacks with little to inherit). Business startups depend heavily on personal and family wealth, which is leveraged into lines of credit. Residential segregation, by depressing housing appreciation and reducing access to credit, therefore depresses black business startups, upon which blacks disproportionately rely to get into business. See Thomas D. Boston, Affirmative Action and Black Entrepreneurship (1999), pp. 76-79"

Again, I think that these and other systematic societal factors have a much higher effect on black poverty than this so called 'culture of irresponsibility.'

Also, while I've put together some pretty good stats and good citations, I still haven't seen anything that tells me what this 'culture of irresponsibility' specifically is, how many blacks subscribe to it, how many whites subscribe to it, how it actually impacts black opportunities, etc.

Can you help me out?

KWH

Joe Schmoe writes:

Most white Americans aren't wealthy. They live in cookie cutter tract homes in generic suburban and rural neighborhoods. They live paycheck-to-paycheck and drive eight year-old Dodge minivans, shop at Pick N' Save, and vacation at the Wisconsin Dells.

I would agree with that, but that's not the issue. The issue is black poverty rates are twice as high as white poverty rates. Why is that?

Black net worth on average is 1/12th($3300) of white net worth on average. ($43,000)

You don't have to be Bill Gates to have a net worth of $43,000.

Too many here are trying to 'blame the victim' here. The disparity in black poverty is caused by 'black culture' or 'black attitudes towards work and responsibility'.

(Some are being blatantly racist and saying that blacks are genetically inferior. I find that too distasteful to address, but I will mention that genetically, there is little to no difference between black Americans and white Americans. In fact, there is greater genetic diversity among mainland Chinese than among black and white Americans.)

While I am not saying that this attitude may not hae some effect on black poverty, I think that the largest effect comes from systematic societal conditions beyond individuals control - this would include 1) low housing values, 2) smaller access to government programs such as the GI Bill, 3) lower business ownership (due to lack of inherited businesses and lack of access to credit), 4) poorer job opportunities (due to the distance between jobs and the black neighborhoods), 5) poorer public services for blacks than whites (due to a lower tax base and lower property values, and other potential factors.

I'm not saying that whites are on gravy street; I'm just saying that white Americans in comparison to black Americans have systematic advantages that came about as a result of history. And that these systematic advantages have more to do with the poverty of blacks than genetics or supposed black attitudes regarding work and responsibility.

KWH

Kilroy: You are ignoring the bigger picture. Why do you believe neighbourhoods inhabited by black americans are usually "undesirable"? After all, the areas are often located quite near city centers, etc.

Could it possibly have something to do with that slight 700 percent murder rate overrepresentation? The 800 percent robbery overrepresentation?

KWH-

As an aside, I would tend to think that many black families buy into falling markets. When I lived in Chicago, the inner suburbs began to experience something that can be best described as "second-generation white flight." 30 years ago all of the white people moved out of the city and into the suburbs. Black people moved into the old white city neighborhoods. I would think that the first black person in the neighborhood would pay more than the last black person does.

I guess you could characterize this as racism, but it's the institutional kind, not the interpersonal kind. That is a distinction without a differnece for the black person suffering it. For the white person, on the other hand, it is a very important distinction, because market forces aren't set by individuals. We all sell our houses for whatever we can get for them, no racism of any kind is involved. Individual white people don't cause this problem.

Sadly, the same phenomeon is repeating itself today in the inner suburbs. White families are moving from the near suburbs into the exurbs, and black people are moving into the formerly-white inner suburbs. Once again, property values are falling. Actually, I don't know that prices are FALLING in absolute terms -- I doubt it, a $100,000 house today was still probably $50,000 30 years ago -- but they certainly aren't appreciating as much as comparable white neighborhoods, where the $50,000 house has beocme a $200,000 house.

Still, that said, I really think you are grossly overestimating the amount of "wealth" held by middle class Americans. Homer Simpson is a middle class American, and he's not going to have the means to send Bart to Harvard (although Bart does become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court) or finance Lisa's software start-up. When Homer dies he'll probably leave Bart, Lisa, and Maggie enough so that each can pay off some credit card debts and maybe build a new deck in the backyard. That's it.

"Some are being blatantly racist and saying that blacks are genetically inferior. I find that too distasteful to address"

...or perhaps you just can't address it. If your arguments can stand up to scrutiny: argue. If they can not: fold. I believe you just folded.

"there is little to no difference between black Americans and white Americans. In fact, there is greater genetic diversity among mainland Chinese than among black and white Americans"

This is not correct. I, for example, provided links to recent research (the New York Times link) indicating large djfferences in brain-expressed genes between africans and other population groups. (The gnxp.com links are maps of haplotype distribution)

Dobeln states:

Why do you believe neighbourhoods inhabited by black americans are usually "undesirable"?

It's interesting you bring this up. The Atlantic had a great article on this. A very simplified simulation found that if you just wanted 1 of your 9 neighbors to be of the same race as you, you would get segregated neighborhoods very quickly.

Or to put it another way, if a white person has a very slight preference towards having white neighbors, and a black person has the same very slight preference to having black neighbors, you end up with all-white and all-black neighborhoods.

Unfortunately, I would argue that this segregation leads to poverty for blacks. And the poverty is what causes 'black neighborhoods to be undesirable'.

So, Doebeln, please understand. I am not saying that blacks are being kept down by racist whites or that blacks are the victims of obvious racist discrimination.

What I am saying is that whites have some relatively small advantages over blacks in our society due to history and population. These small advantages lead to dramatic effects.

KWH

Joe Schmoe writes:

I guess you could characterize this as racism, but it's the institutional kind, not the interpersonal kind.

I don't like using the racism label to this. I think when we do, we get away from trying to solve the real problem.

The real problem is that twice as many blacks are in poverty compared to whites. Twice as many blacks are unemployed as whites. This has not changed for 35 years.

The causes of this disparity are too complex to label racism. They have to do with factors of very slight preferences to live among similar people, with the difference in the size of black and white populations, with historical growth of wealth and how it was transferred from one generation to another, with blacks historically being restricted from some opportunities that whites had and the effects on their children and grandchildren today, with out-of-wedlock births.

When people hear racism, they think that their being accused of being unfair and unjust. People react strongly against that sort of accusation.

And it won't help us solve the problem.

KWH

KWH-

Ah, okay, I see your point. I agree that black people are, to some extent, still the victims of social and historical forces beyond their control. However, things are getting better each and every year, and these forces have nowhere near the impact that they once had. But I agree that they are still important. Racism still exists, public services in black neighborhoods are worse than those in white neighborhoods, etc. It's true.

The question is, what is the best way for blacks to escape the conditions that admittedly handicap them? I. and most conservatives, believe that individual effort and family values are the answer.

Moreover, I believe that government programs are not the answer. If throwing more money at the public schools would improve education I wold support it wholeheartedly. Ditto for tearing down privately-owned slum tenements and building brand-new publicly-owned high rise apartments will all of the modern conveniences.

These measures have been tried and failed. What, then, should a minority person who wishes to escape poverty do? Stay in school. Get married before you have kids. Stay out of trouble. These are good ideas because they work. There is plenty of irrefutable statistical evidence which supports them.

If we thought government programs would lift people out of poverty, we would support them. But they don't. What does work is having people lift themselves out. Is this fair? No. Does it put black people at a pronounced disadvantage vis a vis whites? Yes, absolutely. But I don't see any alternative.

My heart breaks at this, but what more do you want? I met a guy with pancreatic cancer at the doctor's office the other day. He's a nice guy. He's going to die young. There's no cure. It's unfair, but there's nothing I can do for him. I think of black people and poverty in a similar light. I wish black people didn't have to work harder, but they do.

"It's interesting you bring this up. The Atlantic had a great article on this. A very simplified simulation found that if you just wanted 1 of your 9 neighbors to be of the same race as you, you would get segregated neighborhoods very quickly."

True - but are we seeing the same property-value depressing effect from self-segregation in Korean neighbourhoods? Chinese neighbourhoods? Jewish neighbourhoods? Not really.

So, why is that? I would pony up one main explanation:

Crime. The average person is very adverse to the prospect of being robbed, murdered or raped. As I pointed out above, black crime rates are far, far higher than the population average for other races (including hispanics - the hispanic murder rate is roughly three times the white murder rate). The start of white flight during the mid-sixties coincided with a huge murder rate spike - and white flight was a quite high-pace phenomenon, not
a slow segregation process.

Doeblen writes:

This is not correct. I, for example, provided links to recent research (the New York Times link) indicating large djfferences in brain-expressed genes between africans and other population groups. (The gnxp.com links are maps of haplotype distribution)

First of all, this studied sub-saharan Africans, not African Americans.

Second, from the Newsweek article about the same subject:

"That does not mean one population is smarter than another, Lahn and other scientists stressed, noting that numerous other genes are key to brain development.

“There’s just no correlation,” said Duke’s Wray, calling education and other environmental factors more important for intelligence than DNA anyway."

Third, small amounts of genetic mixing mitigate this effect rapidly. See Brad Delong:
http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2005/09/20050912_popula.html

KWH

"The causes of this disparity are too complex to label racism. They have to do with factors of very slight preferences to live among similar people, with the difference in the size of black and white populations, with historical growth of wealth and how it was transferred from one generation to another, with blacks historically being restricted from some opportunities that whites had and the effects on their children and grandchildren today, with out-of-wedlock births."

As pointed out above, I believe there is more to the story than this. But let's move on to the point.

"When people hear racism, they think that their being accused of being unfair and unjust. People react strongly against that sort of accusation.

And it won't help us solve the problem."

Well, first of all, a fair share of americans are indeed privately racist. They deny it to others, and to themselves, of course, but they would never, ever move to a majority-black area, or allow their children to go to a majority-black school. Furthermore, these are very wise decisions.

But still, it is true that the problem is not solved by pointing fingers at people acting in the best interest of their kids.

"First of all, this studied sub-Saharan Africans, not African Americans."

Correct, but there is a rather close genetic relation between the two groups.

“There’s just no correlation,” said Duke’s Wray, calling education and other environmental factors more important for intelligence than DNA anyway."

Yes, I read that sentence earlier: The people over at www.gnxp.com were having a good laugh over it. It is so incorrect I don't really know where to begin.

"Third, small amounts of genetic mixing mitigate this effect rapidly. See Brad Delong:"

Brad DeLong is an economist, not a geneticist, so I don't really know how seriously I should take his effort. Even considering that, his home-brew genetics are a bit silly. (Especially since "rapidly" appears to mean thousands of years in DeLong's example)

"There is no age in which you can say what Andrew Sullivan wants to say: that there are subtle, genetic differences between "broad racial groups" in the sense that members of population 1 have the mutation, and members of population 2 do not".

Apparently, English is not DeLong's strong suit as he appears to equate "subtle" with "absolute".

"Lower IQ? Why do you think this is? IQ is usually attempted to measure intelligence not education. Do you feel that blacks are genetically less intelligent than whites?"

My understanding of IQ is that it changes very little past early childhood; it's essentially fixed very early on. The society that affects a very young child the most is the home he or she lives in; outside influences have relatively little effect.

So given the statistically significant differences in IQ among ethnic groups, you can't blame disparities in education; IQ is mostly fixed before kindergarten starts. You're left with home life and the cultural influences that shape how the parents structure it, and genes.

None of this, of course, means that a particular person of one ethnic group is "inferior" to a person belonging to another. That kind of across-the-board statement would, indeed, be racist. But racism implies irrational prejudice -- and if something is soundly established, like IQ variation among ethnic groups, it's not irrational. Therefore, it's not racist, unless "racist" loses all of its negative meaning.

KWH: Re: "blaming the victim," I hate that phrase. It's way too broad. I have no problem blaming the "victim" in the case of a drunk driver wrapping his Corvette around a tree. He's to blame, so I blame him.

I guess one solution is to encourage Black teenaged girls to abort their unwanted children at the same rate as white middle class teenaged girls. That would take care of a lot of the single parent issue.

All this yada yada about black home equity doesn't address the poverty issue. People who own their homes are not "poor."

Jack Tanner , I assume you quote me "I know for a fact":

I am sorry, but it is simply true that the assessiblity of pre-school and homeownership are indeed indicators how someone will be doing in the future. It is pretty much determinative that the odds of someone dropping out of school are far more greater for the child who did not go to preschool than if that child had that opportunity. I do have the facts. You have your beliefs. You, if you believe it makes no difference, that is a prechool experience, then you are simply wrong in your beliefs. But then again there are some people who say, "Don't give me the facts because I don't want to change or confuse my beliefs." Let's argue facts.

In fact, I'd argue that it does in how wealth gets transferred from generation to generation.

Poverty is determined by income, not wealth. Income does not get transferred from generation to generation. You can escape poverty and live a middle-class life with nothing more than a high school education; that is a simple fact.

What do you think?

I think that any argument that American blacks' problems are caused by someone other than themselves needs to confront the fact that black immigrants do very well here.

Other than popular perception or anecdotal evidence, I've never seen any good evidence that 1) this belief exists in higher rates among blacks than whites, 2) that it's existed for the last 50 years, 3) that it has an effect on income and/or net worth.

Heh. You yourself are claiming that black people's problems are white people's fault and there's nothing they can do to improve their situation. So don't try to peddle the idea that such notions are rare.

This is a fairly extradornary claim that 35 million Americans subscribe to as a whole

I never said all 35 million black Americans subscribe to such ideas. I said that a large portion of black culture did. Many blacks have middle-class values (and the better incomes and lives that follow from those values).

It is pretty much determinative that the odds of someone dropping out of school are far more greater for the child who did not go to preschool than if that child had that opportunity.

Repeat after me: Correlation does not imply causation.

Just because children who didn't go to preschool are less likely to graduate doesn't mean that going to preschool makes you more likely to graduate. The are other possible explanations, such as that children whose parents care about their education are more likely both to attend preschool and to graduate, whereas neglectful parents' children are less likely to do either.

Chip wrote:

It is pretty much determinative that the odds of someone dropping out of school are far more greater for the child who did not go to preschool than if that child had that opportunity.

Well, my state of residence, Georgia, has free pre-K for anyone who wants it. It's paid for by the state lottery and has been around since 1993. I suppose we should start seeing some results any year now.

Hispanics and whites have very similar rates of non-married families, yet hispanics are more likely to be poor than whties. Comments?

According to the US census, as of 2002 14.4% of non-Hispanic white women age 15 to 44 have had children without ever marrying. The figure for Hispanic women is 31.6%. Among those women, Hispanics also averaged more children than whites (1.9 vs 1.6). Among 15-19 year olds, the percentages were 9.7% for Hispanics versus 6.1% for whites; among 20-24 year olds they were 32.5% versus 15.4%.

Now, it may be true that whites and Hispanics have similar marriage rates. But Jane didn't say that marriage cured poverty or that staying single caused it. What she said was that having KIDS when you aren't married causes poverty. Hispanics may marry just as often as whites, but they have kids out of wedlock over twice as often.

Another point of note is that statistics on Hispanics tend to count the millions of illegal Hispanic immigrants too. Illegal immigrants get paid a lot less than legal workers, since the only reason to hire illegals is to save on wages. This makes the status of actual Hispanic-Americans look worse than it really is.

Dan writes:
You yourself are claiming that black people's problems are white people's fault and there's nothing they can do to improve their situation

I said no such thing. I said that disparity between blacks and whites in poverty rates and unemployment have to do with issues such as net worth, the difference in population sizes of the groups, the performance of public structures in the group, the appreciation of housing prices in black neighborhoods vs. white neighborhoods, etc. etc.

This is no one's 'fault'. No one is to blame here any more than the flood victims in New Orleans are to blame for the destruction of the levees. It's a complicated problem caused by historical, geographical, institutional, and cultural factors.

Matter of fact, this whole who's fault it is argument keeps us from coming together to try to solve the problem. If many could get out of the, 'blacks deserve it' mentality, we might be able to institute some solutions.

Dan writes:

I never said all 35 million black Americans subscribe to such ideas. I said that a large portion of black culture did. Many blacks have middle-class values (and the better incomes and lives that follow from those values).

Great! Now we're getting somewhere. Please tell me.

1) What percentage of blacks subscribe to these ideas? What are the ideas that you are saying they subscribe to?

2) What percentage of young blacks vs. adult blacks subscribe to these ideas?

3) What are similar ideas in other ethnic groups?

4) What percentage of those ethnic groups subscribe to similar ideas?

5) What is the difference between income and wealth of all those who hold 'these ideas' and those who hold 'middle class values' among blacks? Among other ethnic groups?

I've never seen any polls done on it, so I don't know. I won't say that it doesn't exist; I just don't think it's as great as white middle-class Americans think and that it has as great an effect on black poverty as white middle-class Americans think.

(I'd also be willing to bet pretty strongly that you, Dan, don't know either.)

Dan writes:

Poverty is determined by income, not wealth.

This statement seems a little weird to me, but I'll go with it. Wealth (assets, access to credit, etc.) is what most people use to increase their ability to generate income. You can use wealth to support yourself through education. You can use wealth to start a small business.

When one group of people has a 10 time greater access to wealth than another, a larger percentage of them will be educated and will own small businesses. Those who are educated and who own small businesses will have greater incomes on average than those who do not, thus raising the total average for the ethnic group.

So, as far as it goes, wealth and the lifetime ability of an individual to generate income are very closely related.

KWH

Great! Now we're getting somewhere. Please tell me.

If I provide the data you're requesting, will you finally shut the hell up and admit you're wrong? Or will this just turn out like the last couple of claims you made -- e.g., people provide statistics proving you're wrong and you scurry away quietly and change the subject?

Just trying to figure our if I should waste my time doing research you could easily be doing yourself.

So, as far as it goes, wealth and the lifetime ability of an individual to generate income are very closely related

No. "Wealth helps increase your income" does not mean "you cannot increase your income without preexisting wealth".

Sorry dan...dem da facts…preschool experience enhances a better, more stable and productive future--ask any chamber of commerce that has been studying future workforces....the lack of preschool experience enhances the likelihood of high school drop, incarceration, committing crime, lack of college attainment, joblessness, government dependence...the list goes on. These are facts...I have not seen one paper or study that refutes the very large amount of evidence for this.

Repeat after me: Correlation does not imply causation and sounding intelligent doesn't mean one is. O come on, this is just yak yak, blah blah...I know my logical fallacies...I taught college level debate and critical thinking. There is a valid and sound argument to be made that there is a correlation between poverty and preschool experience. The evidence is there--now it's a question of denial of the facts or action. I prefer action. There is a good, no great return on my dollar (whether personal or through taxes) when given to help urban and rural poor children go to preschool. Opps there goes gravity..........

Paul..we are seeing the evidence...thank God.

"I have not seen one paper or study that refutes the very large amount of evidence for this."

Hmmm. I worked at a public housing authority for several years, writing federal grant applications for anti-drug and -violence programs and managing them. I did a lot of research, looking for quantitative evidence to support the programs we sponsored.

Not only were my eyes painfully opened to the dearth of hard evidence supporting a great number of such programs, I happened across a fair number refuting, if not "pre-school" per se, the effectiveness of Head Start (which, as I'm sure most of you know, is the nationally-funded pre-school program for low-income kids) in closing the achievement gap.

For instance, McKey et al (no online version available) did a study in the 1980s showing that the gains achieved by Head Start kids showed significant "fadeout" by third grade; other studies showed similar results; e.g. the US Dept of Labor in 1995--again, no direct link, but you can find cites here:

http://www.irpp.org/po/archive/jul97/currie.pdf

and here:

http://www.nfg.org/toolbox/members/chap6-1.htm

Of course there have been attempts to refute these conclusions in turn, including in the papers I've cited above, but they all rely on theories rather than evidence to explain away the fadeout effect. Furthermore, if their theories are correct, the idea that pre-school in general is an effective anti-poverty inoculation starts to look pretty weak.

(Some of the refutations, too, are transparently self-interested: http://nieer.org/resources/research/BattleHeadStart.pdf)

Speaking of which, I did eventually conclude that an awful lot of people who are committed to huge, federally-funded programs for the poor are blinded to their ineffectiveness by--there's no nice way to say this--self-interest. I don't just mean the few who have made headlines flogging how much they supposedly care about the poor, but ordinary social workers who are responding to what they feel is a "calling" to help those they see as being weaker than themselves. Their need to feel that they're actually helping is so strong, I think, that it's hard for them to look at hard evidence that what they're doing isn't actually getting the results they want (and I do think most of them--at least the ones I worked with--work very, very hard).

On the issue of poverty in general, I agree with Megan's rough assessment, no matter how infortuitously some people think it's phrased. It became pretty heartbreakingly clear to me that our low-income clients, especially single mothers, made just awful decisions over and over and over, usually about which men to get involved with and in what ways. The other women in the housing developments tended not just to model this behavior, but to reinforce it.

George's interesting story above gets at the issue in a well-told and poignant way: It's very hard for us humans to behave in ways that differ overtly from our peer groups; we get punished for being "weird" ("white," "well-spoken," whatever). Culture does matter.

Everyone has choices....

My father and father-in-law both grew up in broken families filled with poverty, child-abuse (at least by today's definitions), substance abuse, etc.

Both men were surrounded by generations of chaos and - if you believe the line of reasoning presented above - should have repeated the pattern. But both men broke the chain.

My parents and in-laws have both been married for 40 some years, both struggled up the workforce ladder from manual labor to upper management, both put kids through college. My mother and mother-in-law worked when they had to, stayed home to raise the kids when they could afford to - which was very seldom.

In other words, people make choices. Neither my father nor my father-in-law had a parent standing over them, or a peer group protecting them. In fact, both had exactly the opposite influences going on. Yet, they made good decisions, worked their butts off, made huge sacrifices, and have elevated their families from the welfare rolls to upper-middle class.

My father's brothers and sisters made different choices. Some of them are doing OK. Some of them are barely making it. All of them rely on my father to get them through the worst of times.

So, if you're going to try to empathize with poor people, you can't just ask those who are failing in society what they think about it. Rather, you also need to talk to those who clawed their way out and find out what makes them different.

EVERYONE has choices. Some of those choices suck, some are hard to decypher. Spending welfare checks on Cheetos, McDonalds, and beer is a choice. So is growing tomatos and cukes in a window garden so you can save money to attend night school and get out of the ratty trailer you are currently raising your three kids in.

I'm just sayin....

I taught college level debate and critical thinking

And to think all these years I thought that old "those who can't do" saying was just a myth...

Dan says:

Or will this just turn out like the last couple of claims you made -- e.g., people provide statistics proving you're wrong and you scurry away quietly and change the subject?

What do you mean? What claims have people provided statistics for that I haven't addressed?

Dan also says:
"Wealth helps increase your income" does not mean "you cannot increase your income without preexisting wealth".

I never claimed that you must have wealth to increase income. Only that it makes it more likely.

Let's do a thought experiment. Joe is 21 years old and has $100,000 in the bank. John is 21 years old and has $0 in the bank. All other aspects of the character are the same. IQ, cultural values, etc.

Who is more likely to have the higher income after 20 years?

Well, let's assume that they get jobs which pay the same. After 20 years invested at 7%, Joe's $100k will now be worth $400k. With $400K, he can generate an additional $20,000 a year over any income he gets. He's going to have a higher income.

Rinse, repeat, multiply by millions, and you have right there why blacks are twice as likely to enter into poverty as whites.

KWH

If I provide the data you're requesting, will you finally shut the hell up and admit you're wrong?

Don't bother, Dan. I'm not so interested in 'winning' a debate. I'm more interested in testing my views with those who have opposing ones, seeing where they are week, and modifying my positions.

'Blame', 'Fault', 'Win', 'Lose' - all of that doesn't really help us solve any problems. I want to solve problems.

If money and education are so great why do we live
in such a shit world, Ill tell you its because the
people that have lots of it are the same breed as those who start wars and pollute the planet and take on important positions of responsability
and then proceed to abuse them and every living being in sight. all for personal gain,
being sucsessfull means not hurting our brothers
and sisters by word or deed,not killing off life
and depositing nasty judgemental attitudes in the trash.
Nobody has the right to judge or to kill another person, and its not the "poor" who spend their time doing so.
AS humans we were doing fine untill somebody forced their will with the need for power over others and with the plan to make themj pay for the
privilage.
It has all got out of hand and now every body wants to be king.

Dan writes about hispanic marraiges.

I got my stats from
http://www.urban.org/Template.cfm?NavMenuID=24&template=/TaggedContent/ViewPublication.cfm&PublicationID=8379

TABLE 2. Living Arrangements of Poor Children by Race and Ethnicity, 1999

  	               White 	Hispanic 	

Married 	        38.5 	39.8 	

Divorced-visiting 	10.0 	5.4* 	

Fragile-cohabitating 	3.5 	5.6 	

Fragile-visiting 	3.6 	7.5* 	

Single mother 	        29.7 	33.2 	

Other 	                14.7 	8.5* 	

As you can see, hispanics and whites have similar rates of single motherhood and similar rates of marriage.

KWH

Or to out it more succinctly, doesn’t our consumer driven brand of capitalism *require* a permanent and intractable underclass so that others can live in opulent to unimaginable wealth? If you don’t agree tell me how it is possible.

Capitalism, by design, simply reveals what is already there. Those who are rich in ambition will live comfortably and those who lack it will live poorly.

Now, there IS a broad spectrum of potential distorting factors (some of which are incompletely addressed by the regulatory state and welfare system), but the 'permanent underclass' argument assumes far too much IMO.

Rose: I am aware and have read these...you wrote in your comment: 'by Head Start kids showed significant "fadeout" by third grade'

This is true and true in my own city in which I serve as a director of Planning and Research, which includes a head start and daycare, along with justice programs and employment services...these words you use are used all the time against Head Start, but they really are telling of the poor condition or regular public school--NOT HEAD START. I am no bleeding-heart lib that thinks pouring money into social programs is the answer; neither am I a stereotypical right-winger that opposes sensible social programs that meet the "national" or "community interests" test. If you are a Federal grant application reader then you woefully missed studies by the Minnesota Federal Reserve Board on tracking preschoolers and regular elementary school kids in order to determine the correlation between a preschool experience and future educational and workforce success. Along with the MN Reserve studies, there has been a host of other. I have written on the matter myself (unpublished however, for local consumption). There is indeed evidence for the correlation between preschool experience and a child's future experience.

PS I totally agree--culture does matter. So what's the solution. As I said before pouring money into social programs isn't the answer; but sure enough I know putting no money in social programs isn't a better answer. For all the talk (here in this thread and elsewhere) of how bad our welfare state is and how ineffective are are social programs--I have not heard a better plan, a more effective measure to take. Any suggestions?

Dan, now that was funny and I certainly set myself up for that...you wrote 'And to think all these years I thought that old "those who can't do" saying was just a myth...' Only problem is while I was teaching I did 'do'...and still 'do'...quite well as far as I am concerned...and I have come to the conclusion (yes a personal one) that those who use that cliche do so simply to get a last word in and as a personal attack when they are at a lost for sound argument and their own evidence is lacking...Contrary to that movie cliche, one can teach and 'do'.

'Too many here are trying to 'blame the victim' '

Defining people as victims will pretty much prevent any progress being made and is the cause of the problems.

'I know for a fact that we need to invest in preschool for the rural and urban poor'

We have spent trillions of dollars on anti-poverty programs such as Head Start which have had no positive effect on poverty rates and IMHO have contributed to poverty. If it were a 'fact' that spending on preschool was the solution the problem would be solved now. You're missing the key fact that most kids in preschool are in private not gov't subsidized environments.

As you can see, hispanics and whites have similar rates of single motherhood and similar rates of marriage.

Which leads us back to language barriers and illegal immigrant status as the main reasons for the income gulf between whites and Hispanics.

PS I totally agree--culture does matter. So what's the solution. As I said before pouring money into social programs isn't the answer; but sure enough I know putting no money in social programs isn't a better answer. For all the talk (here in this thread and elsewhere) of how bad our welfare state is and how ineffective are are social programs--I have not heard a better plan, a more effective measure to take. Any suggestions?

Pressure black leaders and the black community to acknowledge the problems in their culture and address them. This is a problem that can only be solved from within that community.

Of course, to do that and not be labelled racist is almost impossible, especially for Republicans. The Democratic Party likes having a class of "victims" to serve, so they have no interest in changing the status quo either. I'm not optimistic.

AS for Hispanics, reform the immigration policies. Close the border and institute some sort of guest worker program. Crack down on employers who violate the law. Dump those stupid ESL cirriculums and use English immersion tactics for Hispanic public school students.

KWH writes:

” Let's do a thought experiment. Joe is 21 years old and has $100,000 in the bank. John is 21 years old and has $0 in the bank. All other aspects of the character are the same. IQ, cultural values, etc.
Who is more likely to have the higher income after 20 years?”

Two Answers: First, as a practical matter, John has a much better chance of a higher income in 20 years. The University of Chicago, several decades ago, did a study on people who receive cash lump sums following litigation. Regardless of race, class, education, etc. well over 90% of recipients were bankrupt 2 years later. Typically, the recipient takes off work and lives large until the money runs out. Thus, the likely result in this hypo is that Joe would take an extended vacation, spend the 100Kand have a big gap in his resume` and a big hole in his wallet. John, meanwhile, is hopefully in line for a raise and a promotion and has put something into his 401K.

My anecdotal experience, and that of many other trial lawyers in Texas, confirms this phenomena: giving lump sums of money to people who live and save (or don’t save, as the case may be) paycheck to paycheck addles the brain. Normally, attorneys try to get their clients to annuitize their recovery so they have a steady income stream. I try to get mine to pay cash for a home as well although I do very little plaintiff’s work.

Second answer: this is a bogus hypothetical if the point is to demonstrate how family wealth drives success and the absence of family wealth is a marker for poverty. If the middle class were defined largely by people who began life with an economic jump-start, it would be a fraction of what it is today. Middle class kids don’t graduate from college and get a big cash prize from their parents to get them going in life. Believe me, I am one of those parents, and I was damn glad just to quit paying for the education. THAT was our gift to our kids: school with no debt. Not that graduating with debt is a huge thing. My son, after grad school at Columbia has debt and also a good job. My wife and I finished college and grad school on our own nickel, paid off the debt, lived ‘tight’ for ten years or so and then, gradually, things started to improve. Jane’s four behaviors served us well.

Dan is defending the common sense point that education, a work ethic, personal and financial prudence produce (a) middle class status and (b) wealth accumulation. This is self-evident to the millions and millions of Americans who make this basic formula work every day of their lives. Good luck trying to tell these people that a certain class is less well off because their parents bought a home in the wrong part of town and it didn’t appreciate with the rest of the market. The response is going to be: (1) “are your serious?” and (2) “well, did the downcast finish school, defer having kids, work full time, etc.? If not, there is your answer.”

This very long thread contains, substantively, two views. View No. 1 is “Jane’s four behaviors would alleviate most poverty” and View No. 2 is “Poverty is the result of __________ (fill in the blank)-- hard work, staying in school, personal and financial stability have nothing to do with it.” The latter enables the very group they hope to help. Too bad.

Let's do a thought experiment. Joe is 21 years old and has $100,000 in the bank. John is 21 years old and has $0 in the bank. All other aspects of the character are the same. IQ, cultural values, etc.

McKinney makes a great point. Who are these people who get a $100K head start at age 21? The vast majority of middle classers, if they were lucky, either paid their own way through college with loans or got some or all of that freight paid by their parents. Many go to state colleges or community colleges to save money on the high cost of higher education. I would argue that it is a very rare person, indeed, who starts off with a $100K cash prize from their parents or grandparents.

The story I most often encounter in middle class stories is that the person puts themself through school, gets a job and pays down student loans, gets married in their late 20's and has kids in their 30's.

This is the path to middle class success. No parents' equity or large cash gifts needed. I consider myself lucky in that my parents paid 80% of the freight at UConn. I worked summers to pay the balance. I graduate with no debt. I get married at 25 to an intelligent, independent woman who is also a professional (pharmacist). We wait to have kids until I'm 28. I'm now 34 and our net worth is now $250K and growing rapidly.

While I did have the advantage of getting the bulk of my tuition paid by my parents, I went to state school, so we were talking about $5k a year. With no parental help, this is easily doable with student loans.

Just follow Jane's 4 rules, and you can do it. The hard part, from where I sit, is bucking the culture in poor neighborhoods and embracing those 4 rules and fighting against everyone around you. No small task, I'll imagine.

I'm done! I can't spend any more time on this. We should add another cause of poverty to this list - Spending too much time on blogs!

Thanks for the comments and thoughts.

All the best.

Kilroy

Perhaps the poor are not always indecent, but perhaps the poor are sometimes too decent. Sexual morality is not morality. After people attain a certain economic status, they think that everything else should logically follow. I make $200,000, 'now I'm a fine person, now, I'm a sexual prude.' I'm surrounded by social climbers and oddly, people tend to become even more indecent. Its not so simple as fulfilling criteria, most people who move up are strangely shameless.

"...I know putting no money in social programs isn't a better answer. For all the talk (here in this thread and elsewhere) of how bad our welfare state is and how ineffective are are social programs--I have not heard a better plan, a more effective measure to take. Any suggestions?"

Yes. Let's take a tenth of the money we pour into feel-good programs and do some hard research into what works and what doesn't work. When I was looking for data to support my grant apps, what shocked me more than the negative studies I found was the paucity of studies of any kind. There were plenty of position papers, hot-headed calls to budgetary arms, and "studies" that drew "conclusions" from groups of 10 or 20 people--but almost nothing in the way of large, long-term, longitudinal studies.

I realize the inherent difficulty of getting funding for studies. No congresscritter wants to fight for a budget item that won't produce jobs, say, or tangible handouts. The result, though, is that we've got programs that are *purely* ideology-driven, and that may, in fact, be harming the people they're intended to help.

It doesn't help that our education establishment is enamored of trendy ideas like "media literacy," which encourage kids to look harder at the messenger than at the content of the message:

http://www.media-awareness.ca/english/teachers/media_literacy/key_concept.cfm

It's not bad enough we've got academic and intellectual leaders (gawd) who fall for this stuff; now we're apparently trying to raise a generation of kids who favor identity politics over empirical truth.

Other suggestions? Reform school curricula so facts, logic, and proofs become as important as emotional appeals. More math, perhaps, and some basic economic literacy.

Push our congresspeople to prove the efficacy, or even non-harmfulness, of the billion-dollar entitlement programs they favor.

And, if you're a blogger, mock as mercilessly as possible the idiotic notion that different races and classes of people have different "rights" and different social obligations. That's beyond even the "soft bigotry of low expectations;" it's just bigotry, period.

Yes, I know. And give everyone a flying pony.

"Let's do a thought experiment. Joe is 21 years old and has $100,000 in the bank. John is 21 years old and has $0 in the bank.
....
Rinse, repeat, multiply by millions, and you have right there why blacks are twice as likely to enter into poverty as whites."

When I was 21, I had essentially $0 in the bank. Gee, I never knew I was black!

Just want to add a small PS here: The discussion at DeLong's place was subject to massive deletions, followed by the closure of the comments section.

Here is an example of the inflammatory writings (by physicist Steve Hsu) that provoked the bans/shutdown:

""Imagine each individual's genetic code as a point in a space of *very high* dimension. Then look at clusters of points. (Define a cluster as a group of points whose distance from each other is less than some radius; distinct clusters are separated by distances larger than this radius.) These clusters map directly onto traditional groupings of ethnicity."

The Horror!

As you can see, hispanics and whites have similar rates of single motherhood and similar rates of marriage

Kilroy, let me explain this to you slowly in the hopes that, this time, it will sink into your head: the marriage rate is irrelevant. The rate of unwed parentage is what matters; Jane's claim was that having children outside of marriage leads to poverty, not that getting married cures poverty.

That said: first of all, the data you cite indicates the percentage of children raised in each scenario, not the percentage of *adults* in each scenario. Being raised by an unwed mother doesn't doom you to poverty; BEING an unwed mother does.

Secondly, the statistics you cite indicate that the percentage of illegitimate Hispanic children is 13.1%, compared to 7.1% for whites. So even if you choose to count the children -- rather than the adults you should have been counting -- the fact is that Hispanic children are almost twice as likely to be illegitimate as white children are.

Finally, the data you're citing is from a lobbying group. Mine is from the US Census, here:

http://www.census.gov/population/socdemo/fertility/cps2002/tab01.pdf

When I was 21, I had essentially $0 in the bank. Gee, I never knew I was black!

When I was 21, my net worth was many thousands of dollars LESS than $0. I guess I was BEYOND black -- in some new racial category like InfraNegro or something.

Man, I'm late, I'm so late...

Cobra, if you're still listening, my question is still this: in American society, we experience forty years now of legal protections for ethnic minorities via the '65 Act, Affirmative Action, deep social opprobrium for those who make bigoted comments, credit laws that do not permit agencies to ask questions about a person's ethnicity, school admissions rules that make self-reporting of ethnicity entirely optional, tremendous gains by African-Americans on the whole relative to the prior forty years, and a PC culture that causes lots and lots of us to exclude a new acquaintance's skin tone when describing the person even to a spouse: "Jane has really great hazel eyes, and she's tall. She should be here any minute - just look for the tall, hazel-eyed woman." In what way is racism "rampant"?

This is not a snarky question, however it may sound; what I'm getting at is, if racism is a cause of poverty among American black people, how is it manifested, given the many barriers that exist to its public manifestation?

If, for instance, it's manifested in lower real estate appreciation in mostly-black neighborhoods, as KWH (I think) was saying, is the arrow of causation actually going that way - from a (white) hesitation to move into a mostly-black neighborhood to the factors that make the neighborhood unlikely to appreciate? Or the reverse: from the negative factors to the tendency not to want to live there if you have the means to live elsewhere?

Basically, what would constitute the end of racism? Is it some kind of equality of outcome? Equality of opportunity seems substantially to exist (including on the negative side - as you often point out, more white Americans than black Americans live in poverty, though the proportions are not equal), but it's miles from satisfactory to you, based on your comments. It's frustrating to me because you, not I, seem to be the only person who is permitted to pass judgment on whether racism exists in me, and pretty much no matter what I say or do, if I stop short of vociferously denouncing Murray as a closet eugenicist and declaring that racism is thriving under the smooth PC surface of white America, you find it.

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