
Americans Want to Believe Jobs Are the Solution to Poverty. They’re Not - tysone
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/09/11/magazine/americans-jobs-poverty-homeless.html
======
noobermin
It's not like meritocracy is completely unrelated to real life, it matters in
a certain regime. However, if like Vanessa, you're born to lesser
circumstances, you just cannot escape poverty by just working harder.
Similarly, if you are born to very well off standards, even if you're a dope
and spend money from Dad's inheritance on cocaine, sure, you won't be
successful but you'll still have a net of some kind. You can always improve
your lot, but where you start has a large impact on how much of phase space
you can reach, so to say.

I think the mentality is shifting a little as millenials and gen z are slowly
letting go of the meritocratic myth, but blaming internal motivations more
than context is a problem in the American conception of the world we still
suffer from as a nation. The inability of us to accept that our actions are
not the only determining things in our lives seriously limit our ability to
fully comprehend the world and how it really works which leads us to thinking
ideas like work requirements are actually sane rather than completely
counterproductive.

~~~
dgudkov
>you just cannot escape poverty by just working harder.

This is a traditional, stereotypical belief that in order to escape poverty
you have to work harder. This is old understanding of meritocracy and it's no
longer valid. The new meritocracy is that you have to _learn_ harder. And now,
given all the learning resources available for free on the internet (which is
also very accessible nowadays) it's probably the best time ever to self-
educate.

Once in a while I walk past a person selling pens/begging for money in my
neighborhood. I always wonder how much he could've learnt and improved his
life if he spent his time on learning instead of sitting on a bench and
begging for money. I have sympathy for people that are poor due to unbearable
circumstances such as mental illness or disability. But I honestly don't
understand why an otherwise capable person won't make an effort to self-
educate in order to break out of poverty.

~~~
dzdt
There is a pretty high threshold before book learning provides any payoff. The
minimum cutoff that some employers take seriously is 12 years of school or the
equivalent. Lets guess the guy selling pens is at a grade level of half that.
If he could self-teach at the same rate as the education system would advance
him (unlikely), that is still 6 years of sitting in a library before reaching
the first threshold of significance (GED). Self-teaching is not a likely road
out of a desperate situation!

~~~
kamaal
There is one kind of learning that you do to get a job. But education in
general is something that is beyond that.

Learning basic personal finance, or a skill, or learning to exercise, or
reading about government services, learning cooking etc can go a great deal in
fixing one's problems.

Education often involves learning something, its not always reading text books
and writing exams.

------
blacksoil
The lady in the example is 33 has a diabetes, 3 kids to support, and
presumably also have to support for her disabled mother. To make the matter
even more sad she had no higher level education. I can imagine how hard and
tough it is for her. But I don't think raising the minimum wage or a mandated
salary increase/promotion is the real solution here. The real solutions would
be to: 1\. Educate parents on the importance of children education. 2\.
Educate people to not have kids before they're financially and emotionally
ready. 3\. The importance and responsibilities that come with having kids.

Having been born in a developing countries and went to US for university and
work sometime there, I can say that US minimum salary and the other related
perks are already significantly way better of most of emerging countries.

~~~
angry_octet
You don't need to 'educate' parents as to the importance of education. It is a
typical rich person bias to believe that poor and disadvanted people need to
be told that.

Likewise, people know that getting pregnant at 16 is not a great life plan.
But the fundamentalist right have been campaigning for decades to control
women's reproduction, including to prevent sexual health education, prevent
contraception, and to deny access to abortion.

Lack of a social safety net (including health care) means that if you get a
few bad breaks you could be living in your car with your kids. Essential
medicine (like insulin) which should only cost a few dollars actually costs
someone on minimum wage all their disposable income.

Saying that its better than a developing economy misses the point, the US is
one of the richest countries in the world, and ordinary people are
systematically taken advantage of by their own system of government. It's just
tragic.

~~~
goblekitepe
What's tragic is that millions of poor children are being raised in households
considered poor because there is only a single earner. We have to address the
cultural issues leading to the epidemic of single parent households.

That will do far more for the children of the future than anything else.

~~~
angry_octet
That is one part of the problem, but I think you are being hyperbolic in
describing it as the key. In many countries single parents (or single income
families) are not automatically poor. Having a single income (at minimum wage)
be above the poverty/food stamp line would be a start. Sick/carers leave and
subsidised childcare also have huge impacts in allowing mothers to retain
higher paying jobs.

The real question is: why won't America care about children?

[https://www.forbes.com/sites/brycecovert/2012/07/16/the-
rise...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/brycecovert/2012/07/16/the-rise-and-
downfall-of-single-mothers/)

[https://singlemotherguide.com/single-mother-
statistics/](https://singlemotherguide.com/single-mother-statistics/)

~~~
goblekitepe
Because the American philosophy is that people who make good decisions should
not have to subsidize the poor decision making of others.

America has a significant social safety net, but should responsible citizens
pay for the upkeep of someone who has multiple children out of wedlock before
the age of 20 without any means to support those children? Absolutely not.

People must take responsibility for their own actions.

~~~
ahakki
Kids don‘t ask to be born, they don’t choose poor parents.

~~~
thangnguyennhu
So blame parents, not the society for not taking care of kids.

------
boulos
A few threads seem to believe that the minimum wage is high enough / need not
be increased. I don’t actually want to argue about mechanism, but think that
it’s imoortant to note that the math says our (current) minimum wage is
demonstrably insufficient to remove poverty.

With the Federal minimum wage currently at $7.25/hr, that’s just $15k/year at
full-time. That puts _many_ minimum wage workers below many countries’ average
wages [1]. But that’s before adjusting for purchasing power parity.

Being a single earner on minimum wage effectively guarantees you and your
family will be in poverty in the US. That is effectively not true in most
countries in Europe, even the poor ones. You don’t get to live well or
anything, but you certainly aren’t planning on poverty.

[1] California, and San Francisco in particular, have a higher minimum wage
but also higher expenses. Worse, many low-education workers are waitresses,
which often have a “tipped minimum wage” as low as $2.15/hr before tips
(again, San Francisco doesn’t do this, but it’s expensive to live here).

~~~
rascul
Interestingly enough, $7.25 would be enough for me to get by just fine where
I'm at in Mississippi. I wouldn't have much left over, but it would more than
cover my bills, food, and transportation. Not everyone could do it, but based
on the numbers and my current expenses, I could. It's also a bit rare to find
a job paying that little around here, based on what I saw during my job search
in the beginning of the year. McDonald's, Lowe's and Walmart are all paying
several dollars more than that. The dollar stores tend to pay that low, or
slightly more, though.

~~~
sharemywin
Do you have any children?

~~~
rascul
I do not.

~~~
sharemywin
It changes your perspective 1000%.

~~~
rascul
I am well aware that I would not be able to support children in my current
situation if I were paid minimum wage.

------
neilwilson
If there are only 19 bones for every 20 dogs, then it doesn't matter how good
a bone hunter they all are there will always be one dog disappointed and the
other 19 will be grateful for the bone no matter how thin and weedy it is.
Systemically the 'interest rate targeting' approach starts to tighten up
policy when unemployment gets below 5% - which they consider 'full employment'
even though 1 in 20 haven't got jobs.

Interest rate targeting uses an unemployment buffer to keep wages and
therefore prices under control. Poverty for those in work is entirely part of
the plan. To fix the poverty problem you need to fix the structural viewpoint
and return to the Beveridge condition - everybody must have an alternative
living wage job offer available to them so that job competition works properly
in favour of people. There must always be more jobs available than people that
want them, not slightly fewer.

But that then runs into what Kalecki called "The Political Aspects of Full
Employment" \- a recommended read if you haven't already:
[https://mronline.org/2010/05/22/political-aspects-of-full-
em...](https://mronline.org/2010/05/22/political-aspects-of-full-employment/)

Truly a 'wicked problem' \- tied up with the concept of power

~~~
burfog
There is something wrong with this: "There must always be more jobs available
than people that want them, not slightly fewer."

Even at 5% unemployment, your condition can be satisfied. For example, jobs
might be unfilled because the candidates are unwilling to move. The candidates
might be unqualified... shall we hire a random person as a brain surgeon?
There could be a dozen job openings per person, and still the unemployment
rate remains above zero.

As you move toward 0% unemployment, you push harder and harder against the
problem of unsuitable workers. Reaching 0% is a bit like traveling at the
speed of light: it is an unreachable goal, with difficulty rising dramatically
as you get close.

~~~
atq2119
Yes, there's frictional unemployment. How much, though?

This may differ by country, but you typically only show up in the numbers if
you were fired. After all, if you quit your job, you aren't _involuntarily_
unemployed, which is what the numbers are supposed to measure.

How often do people get fired? I remember reading numbers of every 20 years on
average (don't have the source handy, I'm afraid), but let's call it every 10
years to make it conservative.

In a situation of true full employment, with a plethora of employers looking
for employees, at least low to medium skill workers should be able to find a
new job basically immediately -- within a week perhaps. Let's be conservative
again and call it two months.

This means people are unemployed for two months every 10 years on average,
which translates to ~1.7% frictional unemployment. That's way less than the 5%
number you cite.

In fact, several industrialized nations saw unemployment rates _below 1%_ for
some time between the Second World War and the 1970s. In other words,
achieving well below 2% unemployment rate is absolutely realistic.

If you convert the delta to the 5% number you cite to the US workforce, you
get about 5 million people. 5 million people who are suffering simply due to
political ideology.

On a more political level, I think it's important to keep in mind that the
current situation (where people misleadingly talk about full employment even
for unemployment rates much higher than 2%) is very beneficial to employers,
because it greatly strengthens their bargaining position. Now add the fact
that the majority of funding for economics think tanks is aligned with
employer interests, and it's clear why the public discourse may be somewhat
skewed and biased towards accepting inhumanely high rates of unemployment.

~~~
vonmoltke
> This may differ by country, but you typically only show up in the numbers if
> you were fired.

We're discussing the US here, and for the US this is not correct:
[https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#unemployed](https://www.bls.gov/cps/cps_htgm.htm#unemployed)

------
tialaramex
Both article and (so far) HN comments manage to avoid the phrase Protestant
Work Ethic. The Protestant Work Ethic is a belief that work itself is
inherently a good idea, usually because it is in some sense desirable by God,
but this idea has outlasted mainstream confidence in the Protestant idea of a
personal God.

If you reject the PWE then very different possibilities emerge and in
particular "full employment" stops looking like a good public policy goal and
start looking like you're just trying to waste as much of people's time as
possible.

~~~
tomhoward
If you ignore the religious association, how is this concept any different
from the notion that society functions better when people are industrious and
maximise their efforts to do things that are useful and valuable to others?

I hear the PWE invoked (usually with a sneer), and reflect that it seems to be
referring to exactly how my parents have operated throughout their adult
lives, and that if everyone behaved the way my parents have done (to the
extent that they are capable, of course), society would function far more
effectively and harmoniously.

And then I wonder what I'm missing.

My mother spent her career working in hospitals helping to rehabilitate
seriously injured and ill people. In her non-work time she cared for her
ageing parents until they passed away. Now she helps raise her grandkids.

My father helped design and build telecommunications networks then ran a
company making electronic gadgets that helped school kids learn about science,
and environmental researchers gather data.

Both of them have spent much of their non-work time volunteering in the
community - at kindergarten, school, church, and more. And they have
maintained a healthy social life and done plenty of travel.

They've always been busy, but never burnt out or exhausted. Always occupied
and fulfilled, never resentful.

I don't see how any of their work or volunteering is surplus to society's
requirements.

I do see that society would be better off if more people were doing the kind
of work and volunteering that my parents have always done.

What am I missing here?

~~~
tialaramex
> If you ignore the religious association, how is this concept any different
> from the notion that society functions better when people are industrious
> and maximise their efforts to do things that are useful and valuable to
> others?

Probably the religious connection helps illuminate the problem more than it is
hiding anything.

The reason this is called a Protestant work ethic is that some Christian sects
don't think deeds matter, for them working isn't important, what matters is
believing. So a sincere believer who rapes and murders is good, whereas an
atheist who is kind and generous is evil. This quickly goes down a No True
Scotsman rabbit hole with real Christians, but that's the summary. So the
belief that what you do even _matters_ is fundamental to the PWE.

But it turns out that "what you do is what's important" is almost as flawed as
"what you believe is what's important". In both cases these rely on a personal
God keeping a running tally, they just disagree on what He's counting. But the
real world has no personal God keeping that tally, it doesn't exist.

Your parents lives are consequential in their _effects_ not in terms of how
much labour they put in to achieve those effects. The PWE quite intentionally
doesn't care about those effects, what possible effect could you have next to
the will of God anyway?

~~~
tomhoward
OK. This does seem like a straw man characterisation. Or at least it's
different to what I had in mind.

> "The PWE quite intentionally doesn't care about those effects, what possible
> effect could you have next to the will of God anyway?"

Can you provide any links to material that back up that claim? It's not how
it's described in the Wikipedia page, for what it's worth.

I'll grant you there may be some people who think the kind of things you
describe, but does it really have any kind of dominant influence in the world?
I see no evidence for that, and I can't see how society could ever have
functioned or progressed if it did.

What I see is that well-functioning people in well-functioning societies take
care to do things that have positive consequences for themselves, their
families and their societies, and try to go about them industriously so as to
maximise those positive effects.

And people generally pay close attention to what others are doing, to gauge
who is making a positive contribution and who isn't (both on an individual
level, and at a corporate/government level). Then we encourage and reward
those who make a good contribution, and critique/penalise those who don't (and
ideally, help/support those who can't).

Sure, it's not "God" keeping tally, but it's society at large, by making
direct observations and sharing their observations through word of mouth and
(more recently) through the media.

I'd suggest that society's progress may be faltering because too many people -
including many highly-paid and highly-powerful people - are not making a
sufficiently positive contribution to society, whilst many people who make a
strong contribution don't get adequately rewarded.

But to me that seems more due to an abandonment of the principles of said work
ethic, rather than being too heavily beholden to it.

I guess we seem to be talking about different things, so at this stage I don't
seem to be missing anything :)

~~~
tomhoward
Just adding some further thoughts to this having had more time to think more
about it.

I think my objection to the use of the term "Protestant Work Ethic" as a
pejorative is that it can evoke bigotry on multiple fronts.

Most simply, it can be bigoted towards practicing/identifying Protestants.

More broadly, it can be bigoted towards "ordinary hard-working people" like my
parents (who, I must point out, are in no sense conservative/right-wing in
their politics or social values).

But it can be equally bigoted towards non-Protestants and/or people other than
white Europeans/Westerners, by implying that a solid work ethic is uniquely
identifiable with Protestants and white Europeans/Westerners, which of course
is demonstrably untrue and insulting to people of other cultures/backgrounds.

I now understand that the root commenter was invoking the term as a byword for
pointless busywork, as distinct from work that has meaningful outcomes.

But as I said in my parent comment, I'm not convinced that this is an accurate
characterisation. At least I'm yet to see evidence for that.

I'm also curious about what people have in mind when they suggest that it
shouldn't be considered necessary or important for most people to be working
productively (i.e., for the actual betterment of society), in a world that
seems to have limitless problems to be solved.

But I guess that's the beginning of a discussion about how we gauge the
usefulness of the work people do.

------
fzeroracer
I broke out of poverty. Why can't they do it too? It was a simple thing for
me, a combination of studying hard, focusing on my future and the death of my
father.

You see, my parents were both fishermen. It's a grueling, painful job that can
destroy your body as you age leaving you with back problems and forcing you to
retire early. It also paid poorly and had a lot of risks. Which unfortunately
for us, resulted in the loss of his life. His boat had capsized after a
routine trip. Turns out there were some issues with the way the boat was
built, stuff that should've been caught by the owner. My father and three
others died that day.

It was because of his death that my mother filed a wrongful death suit with a
lawyer that was luckily working pro-bono, winning a small sum of money that
she put in an account to be released on my 18th birthday, money that ended up
being the only reason why I was able to go to college and become a software
engineer.

So why do I bring this up? It's not for sympathy, but rather to illustrate
that my parents were some of the hardest workers I've ever known. They were
rewarded for their efforts with little savings, broken bodies and a life of
poverty. For a lot of people it doesn't mean a single goddamn thing how hard
you work or how hard you try. I bring up personal stories like this because
I've talked with coworkers and friends who think that grit and hard work is
all you need to make it. That jobs will elevate people out of poverty by
virtue of existing.

~~~
xivzgrev
I'm sorry to hear about your parents. However I don't know what your point is.
On one hand you say your hard work and focus on future got you out of poverty.
Then you say your parents are an example of where hard work and grit are NOT
all you need.

Honestly it sounds like you were born with a certain amount of intelligence,
got some money to go to college, and you made the most of it. But where would
you be if you had neither, I wonder?

~~~
mrpopo
> On one hand you say your hard work and focus on future got you out of
> poverty.

I think that was just to add to the shock factor. The point was that his hard
work would not have taken him anywhere, were it not for the money brought by
his father's accident lawsuit.

~~~
fzeroracer
Yes, this. My parents had very little to no ability to save money due to
dealing with basic survival plus raising me. Had my father not passed away,
they likely would not have saved any sort of money to support a college fund.

A fair amount of that money went to support my family because by that time my
mother and my step father (also a fisherman) were disabled as a result of
their job and practically unable to work. It was through that money plus the
aid I got from FAFSA that allowed me to get through college and support my
parents, though I had to make many other health sacrifices along the way.

~~~
fingerlocks
So the money only supplemented your education? I too was born into poverty and
FAFSA paid my way through college.

------
tosser00001
Wage growth would help, but for some reason, these articles never even mention
immigration. The scale of immigration both legal and illegal I believe has the
greatest impact on the lowest sectors of society. The lack of discussion on
the impact so many potential new workers is having on wage growth leads one to
think they believe labor cost is the one thing immune to the law of supply and
demand.

~~~
tosser00001
It’s interesting the immigration cannot even be mentioned without getting down
voted.

It seems obvious to me that fewer low skill workers would result in higher
wages for those who could most benefit from it.

~~~
sidstling
It’s more complicated than that though. In Denmark where I live, we have
trouble staffing certain industry jobs. Jobs like gutting, freezing and
packing fish or general slaughter houses.

It used to be that these were low paying jobs, packed with immigrants. Since
you need a social security number to work, and we’re rather good at finding
people who cheat the system, illegal immigration workers isn’t really a thing
in factories. But the system and legalization was still exploited so paying
immigrants less was possible.

Anyway eventually regulation caught up and ended the low pay loopholes. So now
a job at those factories pays half a million kroner a year, or more than I
earn as a senior IT-architect.

As a result a lot of our slaughtering houses moved production and enrichment
out of the country, but the really interesting thing is the fishing factories.
They couldn’t move or outsource production because they need to be located
close to where the fish are caught.

Despite the pay hike they still can’t hire enough people without relying on
immigration. It turned out that nobody wanted those jobs, even when they pay
really well.

Ps. Im not sure what fishing factories and slaughtering houses are called in
English but I hope you get the point.

~~~
toofy
> Anyway eventually regulation caught up and ended the low pay loopholes. So
> now a job at those factories pays half a million kroner a year, or more than
> I earn as a senior IT-architect.

I think this is an important point that many people seem to gloss over when
discussing what humans _deserve_ to be paid.

Many believe the uniqueness of a skill set or how much physical stress is
inherent to a position should be the only factors which increase a salary.

But the point you highlight here says that the amount of soul-crushing misery
a position entails should also play a significant role when determining
salaries.

It seems that in many countries, companies can get away with paying soul-
crushing positions so terribly because so many people are coerced into these
jobs--forced to choose between incredibly soul-crushing, low paying positions
or watch their families starve, become homeless, not be able to afford medical
care etc...

Which leads me to wonder if there are any societal changes we could make in
order to nudge salaries to reflect when a job is mentally abusive. Similar to
how pay typically reflects when a job is physically abusive.

I'm guessing Denmark has a decent safety net which forces companies to
actually factor in mental abuse of a position when they're formulating
salaries which ensures their citizens are compensated accordingly?

~~~
candiodari
This also shows why high import taxes are a necessity. Not an option for
Denmark (because they've signed away that authority to Brussels), but a
necessity nonetheless.

~~~
toofy
> This also shows why high import taxes are a necessity.

How so? To artificially keep salaries high?

~~~
candiodari
To prevent factories from avoiding low worker wages by producing in an area
where those abusive salaries are allowed by the government, or even are the
pervasive wages.

I would have no problem with producing locally where it makes sense, but not
to avoid minimum legal standards for wages (or for that matter for other
things like environment).

------
Tommek
Why do these articles always start with a story about a person? I see this in
nearly all articles from american news papers. It's strange.

Seems like a paper from a young student who needs to get his 3000 wordcount.

It just bloats the article and makes it difficult to get the information out
of it.

~~~
noobermin
People are humans, they relate to individual stories more than raw statistics.

I think it's great, it shows there's always a human side to trends and large
statistics.

~~~
Tommek
And that's how we get those "vaccines cause autism" mothers. They like stories
more than statistics, too.

~~~
anoncoward111
Polemic. We also get stories like, "despite a strong economic recovery, John,
26, struggles to find a new job after being laid off."

~~~
Tommek
That's my point.

~~~
cyborgx7
If you only look at numbers and not individual stories, you miss the blind-
spots of your data.

~~~
drdaeman
This means the numbers are meaningless and don't provide a good
representation. Needs better data.

Call me inhumane, but a single story doesn't mean _anything_. It's just some
random point in the set. Drawing any conclusions from such a single point is
dangerous (the larger the set, the more), as we humans just love to
extrapolate single points and even tend have quite strong emotional defenses
about their importance.

To remove the emotional part, just think of something from IT, like response
times or test coverages. See, a story of an obscenely long API response (out
of thousands) doesn't make much sense anymore. Debugging individual cases may
even lead you on a completely wrong track. Unless you want to merely resolve
that particular single request.

I'm sorry about the tone. Stories about others make humans relate (which is
good), but they also have such undesirable effects (hype over facts,
extrapolating, etc).

~~~
anoncoward111
I'll call you inhumane then. Despite record employment levels and rising
average net worth in the USA, millions of people are still starving and
struggling with drug addictions and so on.

Averages and generalizations only tell a portion of the story. Anecdotes can
shed light on "noise".

~~~
drdaeman
> Despite record employment levels

That's also a single aggregated number. Until the data doesn't cover those
millions dire situation, it's a bad data. Emotionless analogy: like a green
status page when some percentile of requests is failing.

See, you've mentioned "millions" rather than some "that person.". That's
exactly what I mean.

~~~
cyborgx7
All data is always incomplete. And we can only find this out by looking at the
individual case to interrogate the data.

------
TangoTrotFox
These articles are quite disingenuous as they constantly focus on hourly pay
without giving a any context whatsoever to _compensation_ : bonuses, matched
retirement/investment plans, insurance, profit-sharing/equity plans, paid time
off, paid sick leave days, etc. This really seems just disingenuous to me
since this is a _major_ part of compensation as the figures show.

And the worst part is that this measurement of _compensation_ is actively
measured and quantified. Here [1] it is. I'll take their word that
productivity since 1973 has increased 77%. In that time real hourly
compensation has increased 50% and growing.

[1] -
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/COMPRNFB)

~~~
citation_please
This is probably heavily affected by at least two things:

1\. increase in healthcare costs and how health insurance is bound to
employment

2\. increase in wealth concentration and a shift from cash compensation to
asset compensation (Bezos is only absurdly rich if he liquidates his Amazon
holding instantly)

So, I would say your portrayal of hourly compensation is disingenuous as well.
All of these statistics probably need to be calculated as medians instead of
means ("compensation per hour" sounds suspiciously like "total compensation /
total hours", which is a mean) in order for it to come close to accurately
describing the situation of the median American, because wealth concentration
has skewed the mean American into something a lot more optimistic than one
would think.

~~~
TangoTrotFox
I agree averages can be misleading. As the joke goes when Bill Gates walks
into a bar suddenly everybody's a billionaire, on average! At the same time
medians can also be misleading. We have 50 people earning $10, 1 earning $100,
and 50 earning $200. We swap to a system where we have 50 people earning $90,
1 earning $100, and 50 earning $300. There would have been a major shift
upward with nearly everybody seeing major increases in earning, yet the median
would not have shifted at all.

This [1] is the real median personal income. The data there only starts at
1974 but you once again see a 32% increase in income. Now factor in the change
in hours worked. The average American works more than 100 less hours then back
then. [2]. These numbers combined along with arguing that most people only saw
a real increase in wages of 12% is simply not possible, nor is it possible to
simply attribute all growth to the rich.

Now there is this [3]. The numbers from that paper are really what made me
start digging into all of this stuff. To give the long and short of it - the
poor are becoming middle class, and the middle class are becoming rich. With
the net effect being a major decline in the number of poor, a major increase
in the number of rich, and a small decline in the number of middle class.
Probably not coincidentally, not entirely dissimilar to the hypothetical I
proposed where the median can end up being misleading. These 'nobody except
the rich are seeing more money' articles seem to be simply untrue, but they
are click magnets.

[1] -
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N)

[2] -
[https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USAAHWEP](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/USAAHWEP)

[3] -
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16952930](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16952930)

~~~
citation_please
This is a very challenging view-point, and I appreciate the effort you've put
into backing it up. I think my biggest hesitation of accepting its results is
the difference between annual income and wealth. By this study's standard, I'm
nearly upper-middle-class, but I have a negative net-worth due to student
loans. If my employment status came into question, I would be very quickly
impoverished, and would have to rely on many social and governmental safety
nets. Can this really be considered rich?

Maybe I'm an outlier as an individual in my mid-20s, but it's enough to make
me question the definition of class on annual income.

~~~
TangoTrotFox
Did you know that 72% of people with at least $1-$5 million of investable
assets _do not_ consider themselves rich> As that article mentions even multi
millionaires are also constantly concerned about losing it all. Your situation
does not change, at least not for many people. The numbers and reasons might,
but not the general concern. Consider the ostensibly rich person with a fancy
house, a beach house for holidays, a couple of luxury cars, and a couple of
kids he's paying through Harvard. In reality that often translates into two
mortgages, two car bills, and another $150k a year for college. It's the same
scenario there. Until that wealth is 'consolidated', if his income slips up
his life is going to be devastated. It's only the ultra wealthy one can start
to become divorced from financial concern or even outright risk of ruin. And I
think the fact that we can realistically set that as a goal ourselves now a
days is probably a sign something good has been happening over the years.

[1] - [https://abcnews.go.com/Business/study-28-percent-
millionaire...](https://abcnews.go.com/Business/study-28-percent-millionaires-
rich/story?id=19787629)

------
xupybd
>American productivity has increased by 77 percent, while hourly pay has grown
by only 12 percent

Yes but where has this happened. I suspect it's happened through automation.
Meaning that the productivity gains might not be per employee and might not
easily translate into the pockets of workers.

~~~
_nalply
Probably the gains went to the owners, i. e. shareholders.

Or, perhaps, David Graeber wrote in his book «Bullshit Jobs» that at least a
part of the gains inflates the bullshit part of businesses, i. e. more
bullshit managers are employed. Of course this means that the hourly pay would
rise. I don't know.

~~~
toofy
I really need to pick this book up, I've seen it mentioned so many times since
it came out.

------
hogwild
The woman in this story is handcuffed by her decision to have 3 kids.

Show me the 20 year old dropout. Explain why he/she can't devote themselves to
self improvement.

~~~
noobermin
The article points out this is is a vanishingly small percentage:

>That is, among the poor, two in 100 are working-age adults disconnected from
the labor market for unknown reasons. The nonworking poor person getting
something for nothing is a lot like the cheat committing voter fraud: pariahs
who loom far larger in the American imagination than in real life.

~~~
throwaway2048
But make fantastic deflection ammo for those who benefit heavily from the
status quo.

------
TheMagicHorsey
America is a country of huge wealth. Wealthy in natural resources, capital
equipment, labor ... fucking everything.

And yet we have such terrible poverty.

When I read stories about poor people in America, always there is lurking just
below the surface the key element of scarcity. Not food. Not transportation.
Not clothing. Not even, surprisingly, health care. The missing factor in all
these broken lives is the simplest thing. Space. Some space to fucking sleep
and live.

How can such a large country suffer from a bigger housing crisis than we find
in jammed up dense countries like Singapore, South Korea, and India?

Why hasn't the market solved this problem?

Believe it or not, its not impossible to manufacture a living space in a
factory and assemble it on site in a day, to provide extremely well made and
affordable housing structures.

There is space enough in American cities if density is allowed to be
increased. In other words if these fake "liberal" NIMBYs in American cities
can be persuaded to give up the precious "character" of their neighborhoods,
we can make space for everyone. CHEAP space.

~~~
sintaxi
> Why hasn't the market solved this problem?

The market did solve the problem and then we blew it by undermining the family
unit so we have people dependent on the state with no significant family
support.

> Believe it or not, its not impossible to manufacture a living space in a
> factory and assemble it on site in a day, to provide extremely well made and
> affordable housing structures.

The soviets tried this approach it doesn't work because you end up with a
shitload of crappy communist housing blocks. The correct approach is to
develop as much high end housing as possible which pushes all other houses
down the depth chart. We want the poor living in houses that the rich used to
own - not shittier houses.

At some point we have to realize that the issue isn't wealth or even
inequality. The harsh reality is a significant number of the population has a
several hundred dollar a day drug addiction and no means of taking care of
themselves even if they were handed a blank check.

~~~
girvo
Why do you think they got that habit to begin with? And frankly if you believe
that a significant majority of the poor in America (or any other developed
country) have multiple hundreds of dollars per day drug addictions, frankly I
question how much experience you actually have with either the poor or drug
addicts.

~~~
sintaxi
> Why do you think they got that habit to begin with?

In short, childhood trauma and lack of family support. Often the trauma comes
from abuse from their family. These are not problems you can just throw money
at.

> I question how much experience you actually have with either the poor or
> drug addicts.

If you must know my experience I did youth work for inner city kids from
1999-2006 in Langley BC. I then lived and worked in the Vancouver DTES from
2006-2017. I have several close friends and family members who work at Insite
Injection Clinic, Portland Hotel Society, HIV/Aids Clinic at St. Paul
Hospital, and the Odyssey and Nexus programs in downtown Vancouver.

Perhaps you are unaware what life on the streets is like.

Edit: also, I never said I was a "majority" that has an expensive addiction. I
said the number of people is significant - which it undoubtedly is.

------
craftoman
Most people dont even realize the real problems every poor family
experiencing. I mean some people don't even have heat on a winter day. You
can't even read a book on these circumstances, your body is under panic and
you can't focus. I've been there, best way to survive is your friends and
family and what I called reality-escape things like movies, music, art, games,
creativity and NOT drugs. Some people prefer drugs or alcohol for the same
reason, cause they can't escape using our nature's build-in tools. You may be
rich one day but it's all about luck. It's easy to pursue something only if
you have a healthy environment.

------
partycoder
Walmart is a profitable corporation. According to trickle-down economics,
Walmart employees should be doing very well, but no: many of them get paid
minimum wage and are on welfare.

Walmart sells products manufactured in places with weak labor laws, including
prison and child labor and no American manufacturer can compete with that. On
top of that, they evade taxes using tax havens.

All remittances sent to Mexico by legals + illegals are lower than the amount
of money Walmart saves through tax evasion tricks.

By doing all these things, they maximize their profits and tribute fewer
taxes. Once in a while, they lobby for a tax holiday so they can bring back
that money to the US. They are also not alone, most large corporations are
doing exactly the same.

On top of that, while the US is #1 in healthcare spending, most of that money
does not result in people receiving healthcare. Most of that money stays in
endless loops of self-reinforcing bureaucracy and the highly profitable
pharmaceutical industry that sells 1 liter bags of "sodium chloride solutions"
(saltwater) for as low as $500.

The US is also #1 in defense spending. But what does that defense spending
gets you? development hells like the F-35 JSF, and million dollar rockets shot
at random empty tents in the middle east. That's what is in the best interest
of the military industrial complex.

I would say that corporations are the ones to blame rather than random guys
picking fruit for nothing.

------
goblekitepe
Well jobs absolutely are the solution for the 85% of Americans living above
the poverty line. That said...

The article completely ignores the major cause of Vanessa's struggles: she is
a single parent trying to raise three children. Where is the father of her
children?

If you are not married, do not have children. Just going by the statistics, I
suspect Vanessa's children were born out of wedlock.

Also, if you are very young (still in high school) and not on financially
sound footing yet, do not have children.

Remedying these problems alone would massively reduce poverty.

Children are a massive financial and time sink, yet according to the Brookings
Institute [1]:

"...more than 40 percent of American children, including more than 70 percent
of black children and 50 percent of Hispanic children, are born outside
marriage."

Many of these children are raised by single mothers and fathers. Sure, married
people get divorced, but the number of children raised in single parent
households is far less among those born to married adults than those who are
not.

It's been clearly shown that the average child raised in a single parent
household has worse outcomes than the average child raised in a two parent
household.

Cultural issues must be addressed in this country, but everyone seems
unwilling to do so because they worry about "blaming the victims".

Well in this case, poverty is clearly being perpetuated by poor decision
making on the part of individuals and cultures which perpetuate this poor
decision making. The "victims" are at fault.

Culture can be changed, but we must identify and talk about the problems
before that change can occur.

[1] [https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/three-simple-rules-
poor-t...](https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/three-simple-rules-poor-teens-
should-follow-to-join-the-middle-class/)

~~~
jumbopapa
It's said that you need to do 3 things in America to avoid poverty.

1\. Graduate High School 2\. Work full-time 3\. Don't have a baby out of
wedlock

It's that easy.

~~~
goblekitepe
Exactly. Unfortunately many fail at step 1.

~~~
jumbopapa
I see people failing across all 3, often even at the same time. It's a recipe
for disaster.

------
cirgue
Had everyone in Vanessa's life had stable employment opportunities and the
ability to pursue them, then I would imagine that her mother's and father's
lives would have been radically different and her situation would be far less
pernicious. The point of employment-focused poverty alleviation is not just
that individuals having jobs is good, it's that material stability has
powerful network effects that are not zero-sum and reinforce themselves over
multiple generations.

------
known
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility)
!=
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility)

------
ausjke
The IT revolution will leave some behind no matter what. The ones with good
education will be at the top of food chain. The ones with enough education
will make ends meet. Many of the rest will be left over. There is no fix, not
universal welfare, not even overthrow the government and restart over.

------
weliketocode
Not to marginalize this, but the number of core financial tenets are very
short. \- spend less than you earn (2 sides of the equation here) \- avoid
drugs & illicit activities \- avoid debt & long-term financial commitments:
unpaid credit cards, mortgage, car lease, children, pets

Yes, children who are born into these problems will find it especially
difficult to get themselves out of poverty.

Yes, i f you show me a single parent on minimum wage supporting multiple kids
and family members, it seems guaranteed that they'll be in poverty.

However, the cause of their poverty isn't that they aren't making enough
money. It's that their expense level is too high relative to their income.

Addressing poverty requires reducing the level of expenses relative to
earnings. Let's start seeing both sides of that equation addressed.

------
nickthemagicman
The big questions is automation/A.I.

What about when jobs become more and more automated? What about when 2 million
truck drivers are put out of work due to self-driving vehicles? Food
preparation, Cleaning, Driving, Construction, Science...all of these fields
are threatened by automation. Sure there will always be a few jobs to run the
machines but what happens as A.I. and Automation take over and we have 80%
unemployment?

Capitalism will be rendered pretty much obsolete in a post-industrial society.

Just like humans gathered resources through hunting and gathering, then
farming automated that process, then industrialism automated farming....what
happens when 'jobs' are automated as our current method of gaining resources?

What's the next stage of society?

~~~
toofy
> What's the next stage of society?

Fully Automated Luxury Gay Space Communism, duh.

~~~
nickthemagicman
Sign me up! I'm a male lesbian so that sounds like heaven!

------
d--b
It seems simple enough to raise minimum wages: => tap into corporate profits
that are through the roof & reduce the working poor problem. Organizing in
unions would work too.

Minimum wages exist for a reason: the job market does not satisfy the
conditions for making it an "equilibrium" market. As long as unions are weak,
corporations can and will strong-arm the labor force into cheaper and cheaper
work.

The fact that it has become a better choice to live on welfare than working
with minimum wage is ridiculous.

~~~
tim333
A problem with raising minimum wages is then marginal businesses will lay off
employees. It may be better for the government to subsidise low wages by
chipping in a bit on top. eg this kind of thing
[https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/working-
ta...](https://www.moneyadviceservice.org.uk/en/articles/working-tax-credit)

~~~
d--b
Sure, marginal businesses will be a problem. But it's no reason for large
corporations not to pay their employees, and for the taxpayers to bare the
cost.

Higher minimal wages and tax credits for small businesses seems healthier.

------
guilhas
In Venezuela, housewives or stay-at-home mother is considered a job.

------
_pmf_
Funny how this revelation comes at a point where Trump reports record low
unemployment for the Afro-American population; it's almost as if the NYT has
an agenda.

------
coldtea
Americans tried to other "solutions" peddled by politicians, economists, NYT
and other pundits. In fact losing jobs and trying those other solutions is how
they got here...

Those other solutions suck even more.

Except for a close to 10% that does as good as ever and even better, and who
are the ones proposing those other "solutions"...

~~~
ericd
Do you have any constructive suggestions to add, or just cynicism?

~~~
coldtea
An observation of the situation is more constructive than such thought-
stopping questions, even if it doesn't offer a solution.

Spotting a problem usually precedes solutions anyway.

~~~
ericd
Its not a thought stopping question, I'm asking you to put some thought into
it and propose some solutions.

Or at least make your complaint a little specific, like what was tried, what
didn't work, etc. As it stands, it's just whining about the general state of
things, which I would say isn't actually very useful, unless the goal is to
mope collectively.

------
brickcitymang
Poverty in America is a result of American capitalism, at a very high level.
At a very very high level, it is caused by human greed, and a lack of love for
our neighbors.

We can talk about wages and employment rates, and race all day long, but those
are just details. It's human greed in the end, and our inability to love
others like we love ourselves.

~~~
whb07
I don't care or need to love you. But I do love my family and myself. So if I
need to put on a smile and provide a service or good to you for money to help
the people I love I will do it. That's the point of capitalism and free
markets.

"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that
we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self-interest. We
address ourselves not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk
to them of our own necessities, but of their advantages”

~~~
paulsutter
Something has really changed. In those days the rewards were fairly linear and
available everywhere. But now rewards are nonlinear and highly concentrated.
Income inequality (and opportunity inequality) will continue to increase, and
we probably need to rethink these pithy little axioms that powered the 1900s.

~~~
sonnyblarney
My belief is that the non-linearity is not due the lack of opportunity of
some, but rather the hyper-opportunity of others.

The Silicon Valley isn't really an 'American' centre, it's like a 'Global
Centre' where for the first time, indiviuals can have massively
disproportionate, global impact.

A doctor may earn a big income, but he can only work on so many patients where
as some global firms ... the yields are huge.

Coupled with some automation and large scale immigration of unskilled labour
in North America which hurts labour, and outsourcing as well ... it creates a
schism.

But remember that on a global basis, billions are being lifted out of utter
and abject poverty.

It's mostly a good story.

We have to figure out the working class in advanced nations.

I actually do believe that it's mostly about good jobs, decent services,
decent community. That's all there really ever was.

~~~
wallflower
It's not really hyper opportunity, it is impact.

Impact is the reason why an elementary school teacher gets paid in the low-to-
mid 5 figures and a professional ball player can get paid 7 figures. Usually,
a school teacher has 20-30 kids in their classroom, while a professional ball
player can indirectly influence tens of thousands of kids and adults in their
"buying" decisions.

Impact is why Franz Schubert died poor and why Ozzy Osbourne made millions.

Technology can exponentially increase your reach and your impact. Ozzy in the
medieval ages would have been just a tale told between towns. If you are a
skilled marketer, the Internet is your oyster.

~~~
sonnyblarney
Yes I agree to all of that except you're missing out on power and market
power.

The biggest winners will be investors in tech, not employees, who will do
well, but not as well as capital FYI.

~~~
wallflower
Kind of like a modern update on Karl Marx's "those who own the means of
production are the capitalist class". A Modern update because "means of
production" back when it was written meant non-human assets (e.g. machines)
and the tech industry is clearly harnessing the collective effort of human
assets now.

------
burnmaster
\--- ARTICLE FORMULA \----

> Storytelling: 90%

A narrative about how one family's poor choices have resulted in negative
outcomes and ultimately, suffering.

> Argument: 5%

Lack of wealth and systemic ethnic persecution result in poor choices by
victims. Negative outcomes result. As does suffering.

> Solution 5%

Give more money to people who are both suffering and poor.

Do not address the role that personal choices will or have influenced their
own suffering.

Do not address personal accountability.

------
radoslawc
Oh wow, my post was just removed. One can have opinion here as long as it
resonates with HN's echo chamber.

~~~
tomhoward
What do you mean "removed"? Are you talking about this comment that was
downvoted?

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17966334](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17966334)

~~~
radoslawc
Wierdest thing, I cannot see it in thread, however it is under url you've
provided.

~~~
tomhoward
Did you click on the "More" link at the bottom of the main comments page?

------
Breefield
Rugged individualism

~~~
dredmorbius
February 1928 political speech by Herbert Hoover:

[https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=rugged%20indiv...](https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=rugged%20individualism&year_start=1800&year_end=2000&corpus=15&smoothing=3&direct_url=t1%3B%2Crugged%20individualism%3B%2Cc0)

[https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Rugged_individualism](https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Rugged_individualism)

[http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/rugged-i...](http://teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/rugged-
individualism/)

------
delbel
Article fails to make a point. Jobs are the solution to poverty, hands down.

~~~
ProfessorLayton
It's actually educational attainment [1]

[1] [https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/how-does-level-education-
rel...](https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/faq/how-does-level-education-relate-
poverty)

~~~
harlanji
I live in San Francisco and work in Mountain View, CA, with the lowest sector
of society. I showed up for work starving and with only 18 years of
programming exp., about a momth ago (ie. No low skill, dish washing/bagging as
a teen). None of my classmates or former colleagues would help me more than a
few hundred dollars, despite 10+ years of shared history. Now I can at least
feed myself, grand totaling like $40/day cash income, ie. Too poor to wait 2
weeks for payroll. 2yr ago I was making over $200k and was wrongly fired,
destroying my resume. Lowest rung job is the magic bottom step, humbling but I
learned the ropes at 14yo so it’s just time to rebuild now, after months of
starving/begging for work. I got a bachelor’s degree in 2011 and had old
friends/classmates locally who are still here, too.

~~~
acchow
Have you written your story somewhere? Would really like to read it.

Particularly, I think going from a $200k job to starving must be quite the
whirlwind journey.

------
anovikov
Why is this a problem? I just can't see any indication of problem here, this
is just supply vs demand: world is globalized now and most of what uneducated
people could do can be imported from much cheaper places. If we started to
look hard for 'fixes' for this we'd end up just breaking the economy. Force
businesses to pay them more and even more of these job will evaporate, because
there will be no point any longer. And most of these jobs will be automated
away anyway.

My advice is: invest money into better law enforcement, including ML and AI-
based, like crime prediction and drones. Make sure, by a combination of
legislative and informal methods, that poor and well to do communities are
better separated from each other. Invest more in stuff which gives poor people
something to fill their time with, like video games, so they don't do as much
crime. And that's it.

~~~
jmickey
It seems to me your policy would lead to the creation of permanent two-class
society, where moving between the classes is difficult. Besides, do you really
want to live in a fortress segregated from the rest of the society?

Why not invest money in education, training and a social security net that
gives poorer individuals the means and space to catapult themselves into
wealth?

~~~
anovikov
Education - sure. The only purpose these masses can serve is acting as genetic
pool for picking the best and uplift them through education. A permanent
caste-like system is doomed as next generation of it won't be as performing as
the previous one. But we have to understand that only a small majority - a few
percent - of the poor will be uplifted. The rest has to be kept at bay in one
way or the other.

As for fortress thing - you are exaggerating. There isn't so much crime around
these days, much less than 30-40 years ago when things were still going fine
according to the article.

In the end, it's just the technology change. 40-50 years ago uneducated masses
who were members of solid middle class have been factory workers. They are
automated away. There isn't anything which could be done about this. Besides,
exactly 40-50 years ago, during Jimmy Carter era, same things were said about
farmers who found themselves displaced with great improvements in farming
productivity. History just repeats itself.

And yes, classes must be sustainable and moving between them should be
difficult, only through exceptional personal (genetic) abilities and a lot of
effort. Otherwise they are not classes, just people gambling and some of them
winning.

~~~
jmickey
But what is your end goal? What purpose does this caste system serve?

History has shown that once people no longer believe they have a fair chance
of achieving prosperity, they revolt. So, even ignoring any other
characteristics, your way of social organisation is not stable in the long
run.

~~~
anovikov
How do you define 'fair'?

