I’ve been on both sides of the equation – I went to one of Canada’s most elite private schools. The kids there were “on track”. To succeed all they had to do was follow the mileposts. “All they do” dimishes what they had to do really – it doesn’t mean they didn’t have to work hard, be disciplined and so on, they did. But if they were, they would succeed, damn near guaranteed. In their case hard work would pay off. And if they went off track for a bit, not only were there plenty of adults to get them back on track – both from their family and their school, but the kids they hung out with didn’t think getting off track was smart or cool or in any way admirable. Everything was conspiring to get these kids on track and keep them there. They had a chance to go as far as they could (I was a bursary student, even so, I’m an example of how free will can mess you up.)

Kids who grow up in poverty don’t have that. Their parents aren’t pushing them on the right path, their teachers might be, but odds are they aren’t really – school is a warehouse. And their peers don’t respect or value heading down the path to conventional success (except maybe athletic success). Nor is it obvious what you have to do to succeed. The goalposts aren’t highlighted for you in neon. And if you fall off the road, no one’s shoving you back on.

And poverty weighs you down. While I approve of the programs that have well-off people try and live on poverty wages for a week or a month; while I think they’re a good idea – they don’t catch either the desperation of thinking this will never end, or the wear and tear that comes from grinding poverty – where you put of medical expenses, you don’t get your hair cut, you eat the cheapest foods so you become pasty and unhealthy; you don’t get dental work done’ you don’t buy new clothes, and so on. You become run down and despair settles around you like an old coat.

And that despair is a huge negative to potential employers. One thing I found when I was job hunting when I was truly desperate, is that if you say “I’ll do anything” and you sound like you really mean it, no one will hire you. Desperation is a turnoff to people. They don’t like people who are down, they don’t like being around them, they don’t want to hire them or have anything to do with them.

So the more you need help, the less anyone wants to have to do with it. You walk through life, and your constant experience is of people turning away from you, refusing to give you a chance, refusng to lend a helping hand. It’s a vicious spiral even on a personal level, let alone on an intergenerational level, and it’s very hard to get out of it. Nor, in many cases, is there any attempt to get people out of it (for example, most welfare programs forbid recipients to go to college while receiving them.)

The social capital a kid receives from his parents and from his peers is immense. But within a life, success leads to success, and failure leads to failure and once someone is down, it’s often damn hard to get back up. And in general, society, rather than offering a hand up, either tosses them a quarter, or just walks around the heap on the ground carefully pretending not even to see it.

Yes – you have the despair part exactly right.

And there is also the condescension – people throwing out things – advice, job postings, etc. that they have no understanding aren’t within the grasp of the one in need. Akin to giving a frozen whole turkey to someone without a stove and a knife and fork. The turkey spoils raw, and the person is still starving. But now is also blamed for not having “taken advantage” of the handout of the turkey.

Kids who grow up in poverty don’t have that. Their parents aren’t pushing them on the right path, their teachers might be, but odds are they aren’t really – school is a warehouse. And their peers don’t respect or value heading down the path to conventional success (except maybe athletic success). Nor is it obvious what you have to do to succeed. The goalposts aren’t highlighted for you in neon. And if you fall off the road, no one’s shoving you back on.

And poverty weighs you down. While I approve of the programs that have well-off people try and live on poverty wages for a week or a month; while I think they’re a good idea – they don’t catch either the desperation of thinking this will never end, or the wear and tear that comes from grinding poverty – where you put of medical expenses, you don’t get your hair cut, you eat the cheapest foods so you become pasty and unhealthy; you don’t get dental work done’ you don’t buy new clothes, and so on. You become run down and despair settles around you like an old coat.

And that despair is a huge negative to potential employers. One thing I found when I was job hunting when I was truly desperate, is that if you say “I’ll do anything” and you sound like you really mean it, no one will hire you. Desperation is a turnoff to people. They don’t like people who are down, they don’t like being around them, they don’t want to hire them or have anything to do with them.

So the more you need help, the less anyone wants to have to do with it. You walk through life, and your constant experience is of people turning away from you, refusing to give you a chance, refusng to lend a helping hand. It’s a vicious spiral even on a personal level, let alone on an intergenerational level, and it’s very hard to get out of it. Nor, in many cases, is there any attempt to get people out of it (for example, most welfare programs forbid recipients to go to college while receiving them.)

The social capital a kid receives from his parents and from his peers is immense. But within a life, success leads to success, and failure leads to failure and once someone is down, it’s often damn hard to get back up. And in general, society, rather than offering a hand up, either tosses them a quarter, or just walks around the heap on the ground carefully pretending not even to see it.

Bubba framed the argument for shared responsibility well, as one of common humanity, at his recent commencement address at Harvard:

“…human beings with their three billion genomes are 99.9 percent identical genetically…

…The great temptation for all of you is to believe that the one-tenth of one percent of you which is different and which brought you here and which can bring you great riches or whatever else you want, is really the sum of who you are and that you deserve your good fate, and others deserve their bad one. That is the trap into which you must not fall.

Warren Buffett’s just about to give away 99 percent of his money because he said most of it he made because of where he was born and when he was born. It was a lucky accident. … So he’s just going to give it away. And still with less than one percent left, have more than he could ever spend. …”

Maybe we should begin a public campaign to encourage those who have “made it” to retire and let someone else take a shot at the lottery or to give away all but some base, like $20M, below which they’d never fall, if they wish to stay active in business.

spinoza @ 40

Americans do not realize how we are becoming a third world country. In the 1960s, my dad made $7,500 a year. I had three brothers. My mother did not work. We had a house that was paid off and a decent used car. We had plenty of food and a vacation every summer. Today I know academic couples where both work, making $120,000 a year, and they are living paycheck to paycheck.

Exactly. The system needs to change, but how?

Well, we tried the minimum wage increases and tax credits, but inflation always eats into increased income.

It seems we need to emulate the Rich by having set aside wealth assets (terrible phrasing, sorry). They use stocks & bonds, insurance, real estate, antiques, art, companies and other kinds of non-cash assets. Common folk need their home(s), insurance policies, retirement accounts like IRAs or 401Ks or Keoughs (usually invested in stocks & bonds) and hopefully in the future secure healthcare and secure corporate-assisted retirement funds and perhaps a couple of other ways to have wealth without cash in the pocket.

Another major improvement would be to ‘fix’ the way people borrow, so they don’t end up losing their homes when they borrow constantly on their home equity or when balloon payments push them past their limit. Credit card rates and credit card company behaviors which addict people who handle credit badly is certainly another obvious problem area.

Look to where people are falling down badly or are being pushed down by greedy corporate behavior and then fix those areas!

Hey Kids, Thanks to the gutting of the treasury by Bush et al, the U.S. Government itself has entered the ranks of the debt crushed poor. I’m afraid that all this talk of what we could do “if only” has to remain academic unless our monetary master, the Chinese government approves.

Arguments that we are “kids” and that we have no control over our own lives (or economy) are pathetic and irrelevant.

We are in charge of our lives and our government and we will set things right AND the Chinese will like us for doing it and for helping them to improve their people’s lot to boot.

1. HeadStart – Pre-school education. It works. It’s been there. It has never in 40 years been funded completely. Where the problem in skills development is is in the late elementary and early middle school grades. Any gains from HeadStart get eroded by the third grade without other programs.

2. Job Corps – The CCC reconstituted. Never funded enough. Nixon replaced it with CETA, which was predicated on private involvement in getting people jobs. CETA was plagued with corruption and scandal.

3. Community Action Programs – Involved residents of poor communities in helping each other move out of poverty. Because one of the early forms of this help was the creation of a union for household domestic employees, Congress gradually eroded the innovative parts of this program, finally killing it in the Reagan administration.

4. Services for the elderly – Meals on Wheels started as a project of a local Community Action Program and was extended to other localities. A lot of the agenda developed in this area resulted in Medicare, elderly housing, elderly nutrition, and senior center programs that are well funded in affluent communities and underfunded in less affluent communities because most of the funding comes from local sources.

5. Housing Weatherization – A program of subsidizing the retrofitting of houses of low income people (primarily in rural areas) with insulation, storm windows and doors. This saved money on fuel, which allowed money for other things.

Yes, let’s get away from what failed in the 1960s. Let’s get away from rightwing canards about what poverty is and how to deal with it. Let’s get away from the idea that government is the problem not the solution.

If James Heckman is an economic professor at the University of Chicago, he and his department are part of the problem–the Chicago School of Economics, best exemplified by Milton Friedman and Gary Becker. Guess where the real failure has been.

And this is nothing new.

mrobinsong @ 128

Here’s the view from the bottom after my lightening fast fall from the middleclass.

How fast? I was sitting in my car at a stop light on the way home from a job I loved, when I was hit from behind by a driver under the influence. My car was totaled and I was disabled. Now I’m on social security sooner than planned and was turned down by SS disability because, for one reason, I have a Master’s degree. I couldn’t go to the Food Stamp appointment because the thought made me cry with shame. My children support me or I’d be like the lady on the corner who begs in the afternoon for what she tells me is walking around money ($30). I resent her. Every week I struggle with whether I should go to the Food Bank on seniors day, but I can’t yet.

Poverty is humiliation. It’s also a lot of work.

Humiliation, hard work, time consuming and ultimately, draining.

Yes – I’m with you in the government humiliation dept. I have been selling off the rest of my belongings to pay for food. Was at one point rationing the last box of spaghetti to last over four days, and could “afford” to buy one banana with change found on the ground.