General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWashington Post publishes opinion piece "Angry about inequality? Don’t blame the rich."
Washington Post this Sunday published an opinion piece by James Q. Wilson, who's described as "a former professor at Harvard University and UCLA" and "the Ronald Reagan professor of public policy at Pepperdine University." Well we all know where we're going with someone whose professorship is named after Reagan.
Mobility is not limited to the top-earning households. A study by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis found that nearly half of the families in the lowest fifth of income earners in 2001 had moved up within six years. Over the same period, more than a third of those in the highest fifth of income-earners had moved down. Certainly, there are people such as Warren Buffett and Bill Gates who are ensconced in the top tier, but far more common are people who are rich for short periods.
And then Wilson moves on to shame poor people:
The real income problem in this country is not a question of who is rich, but rather of who is poor. Among the bottom fifth of income earners, many people, especially men, stay there their whole lives. Low education and unwed motherhood only exacerbate poverty, which is particularly acute among racial minorities. Brookings Institution economist Scott Winship has argued that two-thirds of black children in America experience a level of poverty that only 6 percent of white children will ever see, calling it a national tragedy.
Making the poor more economically mobile has nothing to do with taxing the rich and everything to do with finding and implementing ways to encourage parental marriage, teach the poor marketable skills and induce them to join the legitimate workforce. It is easy to suppose that raising taxes on the rich would provide more money to help the poor. But the problem facing the poor is not too little money, but too few skills and opportunities to advance themselves.
In other words, Wilson is essentially making a more eloquent translation of Gingrich talking about poor kids being janitors. And Wilson never ever brings up how money and opportunity are often connected, children born in poor communities are served with underfunded, struggling public schools while children born to middle-class or wealthier communities have more opportunities.
And here come the right-wing talking points, right here, citing the book The Poverty of the Poverty Rate by Nicholas Eberstadt of the American Enterprise Institute:
"Oh look! Poor people in the US can actually watch TV and wash their clothes!" Wilson even argues:
And: let the private sector help the poor!
(Wilson cited a report about social impact bonds published in the Center for American Progress.)
The comments section wasn't buying this. From the top-recommended one:
Wilson pretends that inequality results because the rich are smart and educated (and married) while the poor are poor because they are stupid and uneducated, and often can't afford to get married and support a family. But he cannot explain why the richest have gotten so rich, and why the smart, educated, married middle class have lost relative ground.
From the second-most-recommended:
provis99
(13,062 posts)I've met him at political science conferences. He is literally a fascist.
TheMastersNemesis
(10,602 posts)He obviously has his head up his rectum. People like him need to pay a price. Too bad someone just does not get into his face.
grasswire
(50,130 posts)Right?
grasswire
(50,130 posts)wow
alp227
(31,959 posts)he wrote these books though
The Moral Sense (1993)
The Marriage Problem: How Our Culture Has Weakened Families (2002)
American Politics, Then & Now (2010)
and he wrote a textbook American Government that's been controversial over its coverage of separation of church and state and essentially being a Fox News version of history.
but Wilson co-authored a book with Bell Curve co-author Richard Herrnstein, Crime and Human Nature (1985).
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)he also wrote something called - Negro Politics (1960). ibet that's a gem.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Q._Wilson
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)an expert at dressing up racist and classist bile as scholarship.
edited to say he didn't wright it but above description stands
Scuba
(53,475 posts)"The rich in America are not a monolithic, unchanging class"
Xipe Totec
(43,872 posts)Quantess
(27,630 posts)It doesn't matter if you have a college education, you are most likely going to have a hard time finding a job that matches your high qualifications. Reams of intelligent, educated, ambitious people have crappy jobs or are holding out in vain for a decent job.
All our jobs were outsourced, remember? Ohhh, yeah.
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)dimbear
(6,271 posts)They're just following their instincts.
cthulu2016
(10,960 posts)America does indeed have some mobility of people entering and leaving the 1%. That's why 1% is not a very useful category.
There is no comparable mobility regarding the 0.1%.
Quantess
(27,630 posts)Just a tad less mobile than Great Britain. Please sir, may I have another?
BlueJazz
(25,348 posts)....talks all the time and says absolutely nothing.
He uses "facts" that hold as much water as a worn out sieve
JDPriestly
(57,936 posts)Wilson seems to have missed the fact that we have extremely high unemployment at this time and that it is thanks to the failure of the Bush administration in regulating big business.
Tsiyu
(18,186 posts)with humans who raise their personal prejudices and justifications to a level equal with "truth."
This is merely one more drop in the sopping wet pail of bullshit reprinted and rebroadcast every day.
All I can do is shake my head and try not to be sick.....the poor can't buy what they NEED, forget buying what they want.
Rex
(65,616 posts)What a moran.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Do I need to add more?
I think not.
MrScorpio
(73,626 posts)He blames the powerless for being out of power, but when the powerless does something to get their piece of the pie, it's problematic for him.
If he's not part of the solution, he's part of the problem.
quaker bill
(8,223 posts)defining the top quintile as "rich" masks the problem. The distribution curves for wealth and income are so skewed that the distance between bottom of the upper 20 percent and the rest of us is not all that large in dollars. Income does not really accelerate upwards toward great wealth until you get up near the top 5 percent anymore.
Second, many in the top fifth will move down a notch or two by the simple and predictable act of retirement. This is economic mobility of sorts, but it says little about policy, because regardless of policy, people get older and retire.
In addition, moving from the bottom fifth up a notch can mean that one is less poor, but still quite poor. As people gain experience at their job, often their income will improve somewhat. This also happens with age. As folks get older, on average they tend to get married and have kids. One can still be scraping to get by at the 25% point, particularly if you have kids. Statistically, you look much better off, but the reality is not necessarily the same. It comes down to income distribution again, families above the lowest quintile in many places still qualify for TANF.
Finally all the BS about appliances. Has anyone at AEI noticed that TVs, computers, and laundry equipment has become far cheaper since production went to China?
When I was a kid in the early 60s there was one family down the street that had a color TV. It was quite a status symbol. It cost more very expensive dollars then than a reasonable size flat screen does in today's relatively cheap dollars. (and the picture was bad, people kept turning green and then purple). That 60s color TV cost 2/3 as much as a new car. Today you can have a useable flat screen for 1% of the cost of a new car (or less depending on your vehicle preference).
The same goes with washers and dryers. Many low rent apartments come equipped with an over/under laundry pair. If dollars were again constant, the price tag is about the same as it was in the 60s - a few hundred bucks for budget equipment that has roughly the same functions. However a few hundred bucks was big money in the 60s, and not so much now.
Yes, the poor here often have indoor plumbing and electrical service (when they are not homeless). This makes poverty isomewhat better here than it is for the vast multitude living in mud huts in the third world. However, one must ask why this is the standard proposed for comparison?
trumad
(41,692 posts)and this picture was next to it: