Of course people should recognize their advantages and privilege and many do not. That is different from told that the only reason someone is in that income bracket is because they are part of a rigged system.
Many don’t feel rich because they live in a nice suburban bubble where their neighbors may be much wealthier. Those at the low end of this bracket may watch their higher income neighbors buy new cars every year, go on exotic vacations and own a beach house (or whatever they may covet). They then don’t fee rich. But neglect to acknowledge that even their week down the shore or at the lake, their Saturday night dinner at a restaurant or their ability to shop at a mall, not at a discount store is a privilege most people cannot afford.
Recognizing one’s advantages and privileges is an obvious thing that most people do, and is a far cry from feeling guilty about it and somehow responsible for all the ills in the world. Most people are very grateful just for the fact that they were born in the US, and feel lucky if they had supportive parents. They feel fortunate for a thousand different reasons. But recognizing good fortune and opportunity is completely different from this concept that then, one must feel guilty about it. I have no idea why people like to mix up those separate ideas. Is it because if one feels guilty about it, (since apparently they must not deserve it)…that they are more pliable to being taxed into submission, for the sake of equity?
So it really makes sense to you to talk about the group of the top 20 percent (starting at those who make over about 90-100K), without quoting that figure, but quote the 200K average, adding in the people who make billions of dollars a year?
Uh, okay. Seems pretty disingenuous to me. Lot of difference between 100K and 100 billion. And most people in that group are far closer to the 100K. Putting people into groups and making nasty generalizations about them is the typical class warfare crap.
We can’t compare our opportunities from the 1970s and 80s to what is out there today. I just saw that of recent graduates from University of Washington, one of our better ranked Us in this country, 21% have job offers. Our son’s math major friend is trying to get a job at a test-prep outfit, not exactly a launch point to the upper echelons. They are also facing $1200/month rent for one bedroom in a shared apartment. It’s a very different world for them.
Sure, but paying more in taxes and giving to charities, meanwhile retreating to your secure, affluent neighborhood, isolated from crime and blight, sort of reinforces the authors point, IMO (and I am guilty of this too BTW). Giving to charities is easy. Paying more in taxes is easy. It’s an out of sight, out of mind thing for many people, especially if you can comfortably afford it… I believe what the author is really driving at here is that throwing money at the poor is not enough to solve the economic mobility problem.
My parents grew up privileged, I grew up privileged, H grew up privileged and our S grew up privileged. Heck, pretty much everyone I know grew up privileged and as adults are privileged as are their children. I recognize I live in a bubble.
The same upper middle class also introduce cigarette tax, soda tax to solve school budget problem. And they say it’s for you since smoking and sugar is not healthy. Who smokes or drinks sugar? Are smoking and sugarly drinks the worst they do to their health?
@busdriver11 – yep … and it’s an ingenious scheme because it works for both sides the issue. By reducing any achievement to “luck” and then forcing the lucky ones to acknowledge the resulting “privilege”, you reduce their resistance to having it taken away. On the other side, it eases the takers’ conscience because the privileged ones didn’t really deserve it in the first place (it was just “luck”). An extremely toxic philosophy.
I didn’t read the article, because it’s on a subscription site (and, despite my privilege, I’m not paying to read it).
I am first generation American; my Jewish parents came here from Eastern Europe in 1949, after having their education and their lives disrupted by a little thing called the Holocaust. Yet they managed, through intelligence, hard work, reading as much as they could get their hands on, to carve a middle-class life for us, and to send 2 kids to college and one to grad school.
We learned at their feet how to value education (“they can never take away what you know or what you can do”), how to work hard, and never to expect to have anything handed to us. And yet we all have been able to make comfortable, albeit not $200K, lives for ourselves. But what my parents were able to achieve with only one parent working now requires both to work. And I don’t feel guilty for it for a moment.
One thing, though - does it bother anyone that these discussions always have to do with percentages? If there is a top 20%, there will always be a bottom 20%; that’s how numbers work. You can reduce the gap between top and bottom, but there will always be a top and a bottom.
43, reporting data from last year, the Seattle Times recently stated: "Within six months, 71 percent of UW undergraduate alumni were employed (another 19 percent were continuing with their education). Similar rates were reported at Gonzaga University (65 percent employed within six months) and Seattle University (66 percent)."
Of course there is luck involved - starting with the luck of the family you are born into, your genetic make up, and where you are born. Most of us on this board are very lucky to have been born with decent brains, into loving families (rich or poor) that wanted the best for us to the extent they could give it. While I was not born privileged, my parents rented in a town with good schools and I was lucky enough to have a brain that allowed me to go to a good college (on scholarship) and then to graduate school. I have no idea what my life would be like now if my parents had made a different decision or I had many more hardships in my life. While I certainly have worked hard always, I am lucky and grateful for my life.
^^It is toxic, @droppedit, and it’s all part of separating people into groups in order to divide and control. Blame and hyperbole, someone else is responsible. And it works for both sides. The poor are to blame. The rich are to blame. You don’t deserve anything you’ve worked for because it was all just luck and anything you did in life didn’t contribute. The skilled neurosurgeon shouldn’t receive any more income than the 18 year old grocery bagger. All the skill, effort, years of schooling, training and stress didn’t get he or she to where they were at, it was just purely luck.
I think this kind of mentality makes people feel powerless. When you feel that you can’t control your future, you have no power, you are a victim because of A, B, C, you have no responsibility, no choice, it’s someone else’s fault…that’s depressing and a way to never become empowered to control your future. I know people who have not made high salaries in life, but have saved and invested well, and lived far below their means.
Being aware of the fortunate opportunities in your life is a given for most people, in every income category. Probably the best luck you can have is to be born in America, with parents (or a parent) who have instilled the concept that you can be in control of your life if you choose, no matter your challenge. There are a lot of bad things that happen to anyone along the way. Disappointments, disabilities, tragedy, failure. Adding on to it by blaming large groups of people for your misfortune is not going to help.
YES! It’s kind of like people don’t understand basic math. Or maybe the end goal is to force everyone into the same income level to reduce any gap…and if those at greater income levels felt guiltier about it, maybe they could make it happen.
Nobody is saying that a neurosurgeon shouldn’t earn more than a bagger. Only that it should not be pre-ordained that a kid born into poverty has absolutely no chance of becoming a neurosurgeon (or at least gain a middle class job). Have you seen the schools that some kids attend in this country? Even a very smart kid may give up when everything is stacked against them. You seem to believe that everyone has equal opportunity and that is absolutely not true. I can be in control of my life because I had a stable family that even though we weren’t rich, we also were never homeless. I went to safe public schools with teachers that cared. If I had been in a school where learning was not valued, who knows?
I am not sure that most people at the top of the income ladder really are “aware of the fortunate opportunities”. Some truly believe they deserve what they have and those “other people” are all lazy and undeserving.
The question I have is whether money and class are synonyms. I don’t actually think they are.
Some truly do believe this.
And some don’t personally know anyone outside of their own bubble, and so don’t realize that there actually is quite a bit of mobility. Now, of course, for the people who start out very poor, just getting to the point of owning a small home and getting your kids through a community college is a huge victory, but wouldn’t be seen as such by people who come from higher expectations.
I teach literacy to immigrants (mostly adults) as a volunteer, and they see success and mobility when their kids simply graduate from high school. Because for them, it is. Its importance can’t be overstated. Mobility isn’t necessarily going from poverty to the top 20%. It can be a lot less than that and still be a miraculous thing.
The US and UK have different definition and concepts of ‘class.’ In the UK, traditionally you were born into it and cannot be taken out of it no matter how rich or poor you become later in life. In the US, class is associated with financial wealth, so social mobility is very open to anyone who works hard and is lucky enough to accumulate wealth.
The only issue I have with this is the broad brush used. I am objectively wealthy. My kids had the good luck of having a wealthy parent. They are privileged.
I was born decidedly not lucky, not wealthy, not privileged. Go against the trend in high school, 8 years of higher ed and 25 years of working my way here? If it is privilege, then it is one I have earned, period.
@chevda it is important to note, as you did, that there will alway be a bottom 20%. And of course, for someone to move into the top 20%, someone else has to move down the ladder, so to speak. I was a first generation college student one generation away from real poverty (my dad often went hungry as a child). My parents had little but always emphasized the importance of education. So in this way, I was very lucky. Not everyone has parents that emphasize education. I think it’s possible to feel grateful but not guilty. We are now in the top 20% due to a combination of luck AND very hard work. Both can be true.