Which is the cause and which is the effect? Poor and uneven education or income inequality? The author explains why he changed his mind.
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2019/07/education-isnt-enough/590611/
They can be causes and effects of each other. But not the only causes and effects of each other.
Exactly. Many factors influence one’s education- and SES- potential. I don’t want to diss the article because the author is clearly examining. But this issue is complex.
Sometimes, it’s as simple as parental ecouragement (absolutely possible to find in all levels of SES.) Other times, you see kids who have thrived without this. Maybe a few great mentors, maybe unique opps within even an overall low-performing hs.
Nick is an entrepreneur with his great grandad’s money. Pacific Feather was founded in the 19th century. He is another wealth expert that never worked his way from anything. What a brilliant genius, born on third base and telling everyone about his home run.
He invested in google. Big deal. Easy to do when you’re born rich.
I am all for wage growth. Heck I want my wages to grow. It’s easy to be a socialist once you’ve got all your money tucked away.
The dialogue is good but the narrative is expected.
American companies are trying to do positive things. Bank of America is committed to every employee making a minimum of 20 per hour. Compare our wages to the vast majority of the world.
It’s not perfect but the American self hatred is maddening. We seemingly can’t ever think the country is doing anything right.
Terrible inequality. Low wages. Pervasive racism. Crumbling schools. Misogyny and a rape culture. Failing economy.
Why would anyone want to live In such a morass of terribleness and why are people desperately fighting to try and come here?
Yes we are not perfect and all of us should work for more for all of us.
I just don’t like to start with the premise that it’s all bad. How about a little optimism once in a while.
Is there anything good out there at all?
But it’s the height of elitism to be able to sit around all day and complain about the ills of the middle class while lolling in the sun in the terrace of your west coast mansion.
If it’s so awful, Nick should give all of his blood money from the family’s centuries old family factories and back to the employees or just give it all away.
Not very likely, he’s much more comfortable giving away everyone else’s while virtue signaling.
Yes there are excessive examples that should be addressed.
And his premise that schools in the 50s and 60s where so effective is a little misstated. There were huge drop out rates in rural and poor communities. And college was a tiny fraction of the population as opposed to the current reality for kids today. The poor, women and minorities all have much better access today than ever.
But we still have a long way to go to achieve utopian perfection that’s for sure. It’s a big complex problem.
I just naturally push back on the expert analysis of the American experiment from a trust-fund hippie pushing the Marxist economics approach that has repeatedly failed.
Humans need inspiration, competition and incentives to continue to create.
The Atlantic is at least consistent.
And there was dodgeball back then…
Oh no. Not dodgeball again. ??
“Schooling may boost the prospects of individual workers, but it doesn’t change the core problem, which is that the bottom 90 percent is divvying up a shrinking share of the national wealth. Fixing that problem will require wealthy people to not merely give more, but take less.”
According to the internet, Nick Hanauer is a billionaire. Easy to tell other people they will have to take less when you’re already sitting on a billion dollars.
Unfortunately, the writer isn’t too bright. He proposes min. wages, OT exemptions, unions and taxes. He doesn’t get simple economics (and this is economics, not politics). The fundamental problem is “globalization.” When you add millions of poverty stricken workers from around the world to the workforce – either thru “free” trade or uncontrolled immigration – you’re going to get stalled wages. Globally, there is more labor supply than demand. If your home country labor is too expensive you either fill it with immigration or move to a cheaper labor location. When you do that, and then mandate a $15 min wage, well that person has to come to the table with $15 skills. What you can’t do is force me to pay $15 wages and make me compete with China (or whatever the next low wage country will be).
Bingo.
“The study found that a kindergarten student from the bottom 25% of socioeconomic status with test scores from the top 25% of students has a 31% chance of earning a college education and working a job that pays at least $35,000 by the time they are 25, and at least $45,000 by the time they are 35,”
@privatebanker --Truly, I’m not trying to judge your feelings, but this post has the same trend of personalizing what is objective observation. It doesn’t matter who the writer is, but rather what the facts are. Ad hominems don’t address the issue. It’s not attacking America to point out where we can do better. As a proud citizen of the US, I want us to be and know that we CAN be better.
I’d say the problem isn’t globalism in itself. The problem is the oligarchy profiting from it.
That study is flawed because it uses kindergarten test scores. A better study would look at ACT/SAT scores.
Re: #10
By the time someone takes ACT or SAT, the effects of SES have had much more time to be “baked in”.
The “problem” is not globalization, because thanks to globalization your $15 per hour can buy a huge amount of stuff.
But for a decent place to live and transportation, you’re right. A whole load of cheep, throw away, crap.
It’s thanks to globalization that huge numbers of well paying manufacturing jobs left the US…gutting the middle class. Personally I’d rather have less stuff that’s made here than the crap coming from China.
What nonsense! He identifies ‘income inequality’ as a huge problem, as if the massive wealth created by the tech industry is a bad thing. Poverty is an actual problem, but poor in America are middle class by world standards, so even that needs to be re-defined. America is the only country in the world where the poor are fat.
For a VC, he seems to be exceptionally ignorant of capitalism, innovation, and the forces of the free market. Maybe he should consider those turning those loose on the education system. And maybe he could reduce the supply of unskilled labor by reducing the number of unskilled immigrants, whose children overwhelm the existing educational system. Maybe make the children and parents the clients, instead of the unions. But that seems to be a real stretch for a ‘VC’.
It’s funny – This is probably the only country in the world where people talk like that about education and health care, and it has gotten really mixed results. There are some very bright spots of quality – some associated with “free market” systems, others really not so much – and a lot of general failure, all at exceptionally high cost. The quality record of large-scale (i.e., not just an individual or two), for-profit providers in both fields is actually horrendous.
As if.
Yes, and not if but here now. https://www.fairus.org/issue/publications-resources/elephant-classroom-mass-immigrations-impact-public-education
A page from Federation for American Immigration Reform, one of the anti-immigration organizations founded by John Tanton, who wrote “I’ve come to the point of view that for European-American society and culture to persist requires a European-American majority, and a clear one at that” (see https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/michigan/2017/03/15/mich-man-led-immigration-fight-nearly-forgotten/99193990/ ) may not be all that credible to many people.
I think Steven Pinker has some very thought provoking insight about income inequality. I recommend his book “Enlightenment Now”.
Here is an article adapted from one his chapters:
https://bigthink.com/big-think-books/steven-pinker-enlightenment-now-inequality-happiness