Is Poverty Even Breakable In The US?

[Loren Pechtel]

Fewer graduate. Removing such "benefits" actually increases the number of blacks & hispanics that get degrees.

Let's say that everyone of working age is able to get a degree. Does that mean that everyone who can work is able to become doctors, lawyers, executives and CEO's? That with degrees, everyone can get into a profession and command high salaries?

There are a lot more fields that need degrees than you are listing.

 

[DBT]

Fewer graduate. Removing such "benefits" actually increases the number of blacks & hispanics that get degrees.

Let's say that everyone of working age is able to get a degree. Does that mean that everyone who can work is able to become doctors, lawyers, executives and CEO's? That with degrees, everyone can get into a profession and command high salaries?

There are a lot more fields that need degrees than you are listing.

I know there are, I gave a brief outline. It doesn't change the point: is it possible for everyone seeking employment to get a degree and find work in a traditionally high paid profession?

 

[steve_bank]

I'd say no when employment, housing, and wages vary in accordance with supply and demand.

Traditionally immigration kin part served yo keep wages down.

We have more than enough capacity to provide basic levels of living, but it will require structural changes.

Our govt approach to systemic problems has always been an unwieldy collection of band aids. Like with immigration.

 

[lpetrich]

Fewer graduate. Removing such "benefits" actually increases the number of blacks & hispanics that get degrees.

Let's say that everyone of working age is able to get a degree. Does that mean that everyone who can work is able to become doctors, lawyers, executives and CEO's? That with degrees, everyone can get into a profession and command high salaries?

Yes, right-wingers seem to think that everybody should get a MBA, that everybody will be capable of getting into a MBA program, that everybody will then graduate with a MBA degree if they try hard enough, and that everybody will then get a job as a CEO of a big business.

Isaac Asimov has a good answer to that.

Or consider the person who said to me once, "How pleasant it would be if only we lived a hundred years ago when it was easy to get servants."

"It would be horrible," I said at once.

"Why?" came the astonished answer.

And I said, quite matter-of-factly, "We'd be the servants."

From "Best Food Backwards" in "The Planet that Wasn't".

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Yes, right-wingers seem to think that everybody should get a MBA, that everybody will be capable of getting into a MBA program, that everybody will then graduate with a MBA degree if they try hard enough, and that everybody will then get a job as a CEO of a big business.

Isaac Asimov has a good answer to that.

Or consider the person who said to me once, "How pleasant it would be if only we lived a hundred years ago when it was easy to get servants."

"It would be horrible," I said at once.

"Why?" came the astonished answer.

And I said, quite matter-of-factly, "We'd be the servants."

From "Best Food Backwards" in "The Planet that Wasn't".

I'm not saying everyone would get a degree.

Everyone should have a worthwhile job skill, though. The unskilled jobs would go to those just entering the labor force.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Yes, right-wingers seem to think that everybody should get a MBA, that everybody will be capable of getting into a MBA program, that everybody will then graduate with a MBA degree if they try hard enough, and that everybody will then get a job as a CEO of a big business.

Isaac Asimov has a good answer to that.

Or consider the person who said to me once, "How pleasant it would be if only we lived a hundred years ago when it was easy to get servants."

"It would be horrible," I said at once.

"Why?" came the astonished answer.

And I said, quite matter-of-factly, "We'd be the servants."

From "Best Food Backwards" in "The Planet that Wasn't".

I'm not saying everyone would get a degree.

Everyone should have a worthwhile job skill, though.

We offshored a lot of job skill jobs overseas. And computers are being used to unemploy millions that had skills, even technical ones.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Fewer graduate.

How many fewer?

Education is important but it is just one facet. Hungry kids don’t learn well. Hungry kids living in an unsupervised her cause Mon is working three jobs to not be able to pay for food without government support learn even less well. Hungry kids with little supervision having their brains poisoned by the lead in the dust they are breathing every spring and summer learn even more poorly.

And you assume this is the cause.

I assume it can be a cause. I didn't post a doctoral thesis on children in schools and the difficulties they face.

Most places don't have lead paint issues anymore.

Yes and no. The number of children with elevated levels of lead is decreasing. But the numbers were relatively high 10 to 20 years ago. Those kids are teens and young adults now. Kids that were poisoned by lead in the bloody 21st century. You think that poisoning goes away? Additionally, it is getting better, but it isn't gone.

That hungry kid is more likely parent(s) who care more about smoking/alcohol/drugs than their kids.

The child is still hungry and being hungry and poisoned with lead does not magically go away when you say 'well... their parents are clearly degenerates'.

The point is that you don't solve parents putting their wants above their kids' needs by adding money.

Well currently they aren't where I live. The kids use the schools as their primary source for food. I find that sickening.

But how is it etched? That's culture which is what I've been saying all along.

That isn't culture, unless we want to include being the victims of intentional racism, wealth appropriation, red lining, etc... is cultural.

Until you understand this you can't hope to solve it!

I can't hope to solve it because people like you think blacks are in their way of hurt because of their culture, and not because their economic progress has been repeatedly sabotaged from the late 19th to late 20th centuries.

Antidiscrimination efforts don't have access to a time machine, we can't go fix what happened before. We need to help people now--and pretending they have qualifications they don't just makes it worse, it doesn't help.

No one is saying give this black kid a scalpel because he is black. What is being done is providing people that had fewer resources that managed to get pretty far in high school and college an OPPORTUNITY (you really need to look that word up) at proving themselves in medical school. This is the stuff that helps lead people out of poverty. OPPORTUNITY.

 

[ZiprHead]

If we define poverty as being without the means to provide for yourself and your family goods and services to adequately meet your needs, I think that is completely a thing that could be accomplished.

 

[laughing dog]

The issue of poverty is so multi-faceted, it is silly to think about "solving" it: there are too many factors/influences, some people will have bad luck, some people will make mistakes or poor choices, and some people will prefer a "poverty" lifestyle. It makes sense to think about mitigating the effects of poverty while understanding that there is no magic solution that will address every person and every circumstance.

Once one realizes the above, a UBI makes sense. The real issue with UBI is setting the achievable and reasonable amount.

 

[DrZoidberg]

NPR had an piece on the temporary status of Haitians in America due to the Earthquake in Haiti in 2010. The Haitian representative did their best to talk down about the conditions in Haiti and why that temporary status needed to remain. Haiti definitely has a dubious and sad history like the Cleveland Browns between 2000 and 2018. And I pondered about what was needed to fix it. And then that made me think of East Cleveland, a suburb of Cleveland that is in complete and utter collapse. There is really no government there. It is extraordinarily poor (for America) and the school system is run by the state (which usually means it isn't being run well, but better than it would have).

And the same thought keeps coming to mind. In order to fix places like this, the solution in America isn't ending poverty, it is displacing it, because any improvements that are made would make the areas unaffordable to those that live there. If people are to invest their money into an area, they need something to show for it. So if you tear down dilapidated buildings and replace them with new homes, the people that lived there aren't the ones that'll move in them. You have companies move in to provide higher paying jobs, the people that live there likely won't have the skills for those jobs.

Effectively, to improve such areas, you need to get rid of the poor, at least in a capitalist society because they lack the skills and finances to either be part of or afford to live in an improved area. After all, if they could, they would have left a long time ago! Yes, the poor can be trained, the poor can be lifted up, but that is a generational investment, which involves a substantial amount of foresight and empathy... things in short supply in the US.

Of course poverty is breakable in USA. It's more breakable in USA than anywhere else. USA is the richest country on Earth with a wide margin. If there would be political will, it'd be easy. At least easier in USA than anywhere else on the planet.

What capitalism has going for it is that it works even when the politicians in charge are incompetent. As long as they stay away from fucking with the market it'll go just fine. That's why USA is so rich. Capitalism is great for a lot of things. The nice thing with mixed economies, like the Scandinavian countries is that we combine capitalism and socialism. But without the capitalism we wouldn't have the money for the socialism.

I think USA's reluctance to introduce socialist reforms has to do with not wanting to fuck with a system that works. While not working for everyone. In general, it works. If USA would switch to socialism and try to seriously eradicate poverty there's no guarantee it wouldn't all just go to shit and USA would end up just making everybody equally poor. Even the most skeptical political commentator must be aware of that. Greece tried a Scandinavian style mixed market approach. But incompetent mismanagement squandered public funds and it all went to shit.

Mixed market economies are very hard to get right. I live in Denmark. I grew up in Sweden. I love living here. This is the way to go. But I have no illusions. It's been a bumpy ride all along. It can be done. But it's far from easy or trivial.

Human capital is kinda important regardless of the economic system. Scandinavia does well because Scandinavians live there. Minnesota, with its high proportion of people with Scandinavian descent, used to be regarded as the best run State in the Union.

Scandinavia has a collectivist culture. We're team workers very obedient to those in power. I'd say Scandinavians are less resilient to political mismanagement than in more individualistic cultures further west. If those in charge are competent Scandinavia flourishes because we will get onboard the program and everybody pulls in the same direction. What matters isn't personal glory, but the success of the collective. But if those in charge are incompetent we will still get onboard the program and pull in the same, wrong, direction. It can go very wrong very fast and can keep going wrong for a long time.

One example is Sweden's war on drugs. Sweden put a guy in charge, (Bejerot) in the 70'ies who did all the wrong things. Not unique for Sweden. But Sweden quickly got the highest death rate among our addicts in Europe, more addicts than many European countries and the lowest rates of addicts being able to quit addiction. To put it mildly, the policies were a disaster. It wasn't until this year 2021, that we've started to unravel his policies and have switched to an evidence based approach. Rather than Nixonite ideology. Why did it go so wrong for so long? Because we trusted our leaders.

China has a similar collectivist culture. That hasn't worked out so well for them.

There's positives and negatives. I think, on average, it's mostly negative.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I'm not saying everyone would get a degree.

Everyone should have a worthwhile job skill, though.

We offshored a lot of job skill jobs overseas. And computers are being used to unemploy millions that had skills, even technical ones.

Most of the jobs that went offshore are pretty low skill.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

How many fewer?

Why does it even matter? We've seen what happens: Quit discriminating in admissions, more blacks get degrees and fewer drop out. It's just they're not quite so prestigious degrees.

That hungry kid is more likely parent(s) who care more about smoking/alcohol/drugs than their kids.

The child is still hungry and being hungry and poisoned with lead does not magically go away when you say 'well... their parents are clearly degenerates'.

The point is that you don't solve parents putting their wants above their kids' needs by adding money.

Well currently they aren't where I live. The kids use the schools as their primary source for food. I find that sickening.

Which is not addressing my point. You keep pointing out problems and pretending simplistic money-throwing will fix them. Money-throwing has a horrible track record at fixing poverty.

But how is it etched? That's culture which is what I've been saying all along.

That isn't culture, unless we want to include being the victims of intentional racism, wealth appropriation, red lining, etc... is cultural.

Until you understand this you can't hope to solve it!

I can't hope to solve it because people like you think blacks are in their way of hurt because of their culture, and not because their economic progress has been repeatedly sabotaged from the late 19th to late 20th centuries.

The original cause isn't cultural. The propagation of the problem through time is cultural.

Antidiscrimination efforts don't have access to a time machine, we can't go fix what happened before. We need to help people now--and pretending they have qualifications they don't just makes it worse, it doesn't help.

No one is saying give this black kid a scalpel because he is black. What is being done is providing people that had fewer resources that managed to get pretty far in high school and college an OPPORTUNITY (you really need to look that word up) at proving themselves in medical school. This is the stuff that helps lead people out of poverty. OPPORTUNITY.

In other words, making inferior doctors and giving them a scalpel. And make more of them flunk out with huge loans they won't be able to repay without the education.

You fix the problems, you don't pretend they don't exist. Offer classes to try to bring them up to the same scores for admission that everyone else uses.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

If we define poverty as being without the means to provide for yourself and your family goods and services to adequately meet your needs, I think that is completely a thing that could be accomplished.

And herein lies the problem.

The state you describe is being poor. While those in poverty are poor, poverty is fundamentally a mental state, not a financial state. Without the mental state holding them back people tend to climb out of being poor unless they are too hobbled (disability, too many kids.) College students are often poor. Immigrants often start out poor.

Poverty, however, is extremely difficult to overcome because the people in poverty don't act in their long term interests.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Which is not addressing my point. You keep pointing out problems and pretending simplistic money-throwing will fix them. Money-throwing has a horrible track record at fixing poverty.

That's odd, because I haven't advocated "money-throwing". I'm making observations that poor hungry kids don't do as well in school. This is a non-controversial statement to make.

The original cause isn't cultural.

The "original cause" dates from the 17th to the second half of the 20th century. Not much time to say culture took over.

Antidiscrimination efforts don't have access to a time machine, we can't go fix what happened before. We need to help people now--and pretending they have qualifications they don't just makes it worse, it doesn't help.

No one is saying give this black kid a scalpel because he is black. What is being done is providing people that had fewer resources that managed to get pretty far in high school and college an OPPORTUNITY (you really need to look that word up) at proving themselves in medical school. This is the stuff that helps lead people out of poverty. OPPORTUNITY.

In other words, making inferior doctors and giving them a scalpel.

You need to really stop strawman'ing every damn post. I even underlined "proving themselves".

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

If we define poverty as being without the means to provide for yourself and your family goods and services to adequately meet your needs, I think that is completely a thing that could be accomplished.

And herein lies the problem.

The state you describe is being poor. While those in poverty are poor, poverty is fundamentally a mental state, not a financial state. Without the mental state holding them back people tend to climb out of being poor unless they are too hobbled (disability, too many kids.) College students are often poor. Immigrants often start out poor.

Poverty, however, is extremely difficult to overcome because the people in poverty don't act in their long term interests.

If people in poverty just started new businesses, they'd be better off.

 

[Trausti]

I'm not saying everyone would get a degree.

Everyone should have a worthwhile job skill, though.

We offshored a lot of job skill jobs overseas. And computers are being used to unemploy millions that had skills, even technical ones.

Most of the jobs that went offshore are pretty low skill.

This is the thing about cognitive inequality. Some people are just not going to get beyond the low skill set, for whatever reason. This should be recognized and policies in place to promote reshoring of low skill work and limits on the immigration of low skill labor.

 

[laughing dog]

Most of the jobs that went offshore are pretty low skill.

This is the thing about cognitive inequality. Some people are just not going to get beyond the low skill set, for whatever reason. This should be recognized and policies in place to promote reshoring of low skill work and limits on the immigration of low skill labor.

You do realize the people who are limited to low-paying jobs may be physically impaired not cognitively "impaired". Nor are highly-paid people necessarily very intelligent. The value the market places on skills or ability is not affected by one's talents or abilities.

 

[DBT]

'Unskilled work' is often essential work. Somebody has to do the cleaning and hauling. Which doesn't mean that those doing 'menial' work should be underpaid.

 

[RVonse]

And I pondered about what was needed to fix it. And then that made me think of East Cleveland, a suburb of Cleveland that is in complete and utter collapse. There is really no government there. It is extraordinarily poor (for America) and the school system is run by the state (which usually means it isn't being run well, but better than it would have).

And the same thought keeps coming to mind. In order to fix places like this, the solution in America isn't ending poverty, it is displacing it, because any improvements that are made would make the areas unaffordable to those that live there. If people are to invest their money into an area, they need something to show for it. So if you tear down dilapidated buildings and replace them with new homes, the people that lived there aren't the ones that'll move in them. You have companies move in to provide higher paying jobs, the people that live there likely won't have the skills for those jobs.

Effectively, to improve such areas, you need to get rid of the poor, at least in a capitalist society because they lack the skills and finances to either be part of or afford to live in an improved area. After all, if they could, they would have left a long time ago! Yes, the poor can be trained, the poor can be lifted up, but that is a generational investment, which involves a substantial amount of foresight and empathy... things in short supply in the US.

Manufacturing. US poverty can be fixed the same way China fixed it. Union manufacturing jobs are the only job that pay enough to support a family with 4. Even more important is that manufacturing jobs are the high paying industry that the indigenous population of East Cleveland can do right NOW. Poor people that do not have to be educated, do not have to sell, and do not even have to wear good clothing. All they have to do is show up to work and they are out of poverty and solidly in the middle class.

And yes the robots and automation are taking away these jobs. But the automated plants that are left need to be located where the poor people live in right now.

That is how government can eliminate poverty if it wants to. But the real question to be asked is whether our government really wants to eliminate poverty? I'm not sure the Democrats want the poverty to be completely gone.

 

[RVonse]

Whatever happened to Voc Tech in high school? I remember my high school had an entire wing dedicated to it. Checking the school website, there is a heading for it with no content.
I think a blue collar education is as close as we can get to quelling as much poverty as possible. I mean if you’re not willing to accept free training for a vocation, you need a compelling reason to be on the dole.

Over the past number of years, we've been renovating our old house which had not seen any major updates in...40+ years. Bunches of the work involved going down to studs and in the end, the entire house was rewired, plumbing was updated, so it wasn't simply aesthetics that was done. In talking with our general contractor and every plumber, carpenter, cabinetmaker, electrician and tile guy, they all said the same thing: They were struggling to keep up with demand for their services. Most of them are in their 50's or older and even then, owner of the electrician's company, the plumber's company are our age---looking to retire. A couple have in fact just retired. They are struggling mightily to find skilled tradespeople to replace themselves and their workers. Wages are good-about $50/hr where I live for most of the trades. More for some.

There is a tremendous need for skilled workers in all trades: HVAC, carpentry, masonry, electricians, plumbers, tile setters, general contractors, everything you can name. I live in a small town. It's worse in the bigger cities.

However, for many of these jobs, it is rare that anyone can work past their early 60's, if that long because of the physical demands of the job.

One thing that has really hurt us is the decline of unions. Another is the growth of billionaires. I think there is a connection there. To me, it is obvious that some companies: Amazon, Walmart, Microsoft, Apple, (the first giants that leap to my mind) need to be broken up. And much more heavily taxed. And compelled to pay their workers a living wage as part of the cost of doing business. Because let me tell you, living in a working class town, it is easy to see just how much my tax dollars support these billionaires and their quest for more money by supplementing the living expenses of their underpaid workers.

+1 Agree.