What do you think of this NYT "How Class Works" interactive chart

[expatriot]

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/20050515_CLASS_GRAPHIC/index_01.html

It was linked to their "Super-rich" article that has been posted a number of times on DU the past day or so.

It divides things up by prestige of occupation, education level, income and wealth and then gives you a percentile rank for each one.

I don't understand the education one because it says that if you have a bachelor's degree, you are in the 91st percentile of the US workforce.... I thought more people had a bachelor's than that... I thought it was closer to 30%.

Other things are interesting too. Have a look-see.

[kedrys]

1. I was wondering about the 91st percentile myself

I found that very surprising. Are the "official" statistics lying about how many people who start college actually finish? I find that hard to believe as well.

I ran across an old George Carlin show on cable last night, which has one of my favorite bits in it. He very succintly explains the class system in the United States:

"The rich keep all of the money, pay none of the taxes. The middle class pays all of the taxes, does all of the work. The poor are there just to scare the shit out of the middle class."

FWIW, I'm in the overall 62nd percentile overall. Very interesting. Thanks for the link! :)

[NashVegas]

2. It's Missing One Element: Mama

One's social status is also determined, in part, by who/what your mother is, socially. If your mother is from a high social background, chances are you will be as well. It's more acceptable for a woman to "marry down," than it is for a man.

[ultraist]

4. Who your mother is? It's more so, "whose your daddy?"

Men are the primary power and wealth holders in this country. It's more about who is your daddy and granddaddy.

It seems to me that it's more socially acceptable for a man to marry "down" socially. Society puts more value on a woman's physical appearance than a man's. So, it's common for men to marry outside of their social class, based on the looks and social skills of a woman.

SES calculates in wealth, most of which is inherited, so indirectly, it does account for, "whose your daddy."

[NashVegas]

6. Not Really

Although it may be changing, in the wake of DNA tests.

The men may hold the power and the wealth, but until DNA & blood tests, the only thing that could be said of a child's parentage, with fact, was the woman it was born to. That's why female chastity was always so prized and why women of higher social backgrounds were/are subjected to much tighter societal rules than women of the lower classes.

Keep in mind: wealth is not *the* determining factor in class among old-money types. Sure it helps, and they know they can always marry into it, because they have the pedigree.

But even so, a woman's menfolk can bring her lower-class husband into the fold, business-wise. They hold the money and power. Although things have certainly changed in the last 20 years, what types of business opportunities can the women of a tribe offer to a new bride to increase her wealth and holdings?

[expatriot]

8. you think so? I might think it is the opposite.

The whole Cinderalla thing, My Fair Lady thing... where a girl can ascend the class ladder with her looks and her learned social refinements. Whereas when a man marries up, he will be perceived as "living off of his wife" or being overly dependnent on his wife, etc.

[NashVegas]

12. Cinderella Was a Fairy Tale

Social class and economic class are not necessarily one and the same. The "Nouveau riche," an economic class, has always been scorned by old money from the very beginnings of the rise of the middle, merchant class.

Check your local library for this book:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0316096504/qid=1117993917/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/102-3074550-4273767?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

[BuelahWitch]

3. I think it's a bunch of crap

As a person with "some college" I'm in the upper middle class. However I've never gotten above $30,000 a year (this chart equates my education with an income somewhere between 40 and 60K) in income in all the years I've been working. Perhaps someone with "some college" makes that much money in New York, but it's not taking in the rest of the country.

Another thing: this chart does not take gender into the mix. Even though people like to deny it, women still make substantially less than men in the workforce...

[ultraist]

5. Median income nationally is 43k and the mean is 58k

http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/ADPTable?_bm=y&-geo_id=01000US&-qr_name=ACS_2003_EST_G00_DP3&-ds_name=ACS_2003_EST_G00_&-_lang=en&-_sse=on

30k is barely lower middle class income. Upper middle class is at LEAST 75k income.

[undergroundpanther]

7. Har.

No listing for disabled people's class I see..I have a Ged and a 180 IQ ..so people ask me what college I got my degree from LOL.. where does that fit in in the education class spectrum? I don't work because the stress of dealing with abusive assholes and depending on them because I have to just makes me crazy ..Too much shit.

Oh and where does issues like weight,gender, sexual orientation,race,ect fit in to this? Because we all know these things impact your class as well.
Just more rosy dipshit bullshit to make the poor and struggling think thay have it good until the next round of tax cuts for the uber rich socks it to them.

[ultraist]

9. That model of measuring SES...

is very limited. It's the traditional model used primarily to slice up the population by income. It just so happens that there is a very strong positive correlation between educational level and income, so it generally works.

It doesn't look at factors that can be barriers that limit access to opportunity such as race, sex, sexual orientation, etc it looks only at the end results, nothing causal.

I thought the rating system they used for professions was very flawed though. It didn't even have a category for entrepreneurs or small business owners. In fact, there was nothing really applicable for me to choose on that list.

[MrPrax]

10. This is dumb...

From top label 'different ways of looking at using these factors, as well as an examination of how mobility changed in recent decades'...

How does this show 'mobility' has changed since there is no relative figures? I mean if I punched in an electrician, HS (note: no technical or trade school designation), 100k with 100k-500k in assets (wealth) it tells me 69% percentile, right now?

In order to gauge mobility, it should also state what that percentile would have been in 1995, 1985, or 1955?

Of course the occupational 'prestige' category is simply subjective and meaningless (if all your friends are specialists, you might think less of a mere GP, just as you might think you made the 'gravy' as an assistant Manager of the local Pep Boy) and one presumes included to weigh up or down statistical averages

But it is an attractive use of CSS/JS routines ;-)

[ultraist]

11. For income mobility, click on the income mobility tab

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/national/20050515_CLASS_GRAPHIC/index_01.html

It takes you to graphs starting at 1988

[MrPrax]

13. Yeah...saw that...?

Still doesn't get to cross ref of mobility by occupation or income...

For instance; How would one construct social policy perspective to correct 'volitile mobility factors' by income if all you get is "21% moved up or down two or more quintiles" in the 90s compared with 27% in the 1970s?

On the face of it, meaningless.

The only interesting thing is the country by country comparison, but even that doesn't provide enough clues, as all the countries (other than the US) have extensive social programs, like health care, which may only enhance mobility in the bottom quintile, but not address any lack of mobility in the middle three quintiles?

It's fun with numbers basically...I personally am prone to absolute criteria and tend away from econometrical models that assume national growth which assumes there is mobility as a result.

If you notice that most of the mobility charts are using Statistics Canada numbers, but even Stats Can is now using something called LICO or 'low-income cut-off' to measure poverty.

Let's face it, it really isn't that important to see how many people are 'making it' as opposed to people that 'aren't' and looking at the various classes by gauging, for instance, what percetage of income is spent on food over time is a better tool to instruct social and economic policies especially on income transfers and subsidies.