The damage of poverty is visible as early as kindergarten

[Loren Pechtel]

how The US compares in mobility to other countries

http://www.epi.org/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobility/

In truth, those correlations for father-son income are somewhat low in absolute terms, even if higher than most other countries. A .47 correlation means that only 22% of the variance in son's income is predicted by father's income, meaning that 78% of the variance is not predicted. However, such correlations are a really poor under-estimate of the true dependence of income on parental income. Changes in relative income inequality from generation to generation will lower the correlation, even if the change is increased inequality and it reflects a rich get even richer effect from father to son. IOW, if a person born into poverty stays poor but a person born into wealth is able to use that wealth to get even wealthier than their parents (which is what every scientific model of recent economic changes in the US shows is happening), this will reduce the inter-generational correlation. IOW, the dependence of wealth on parental wealth is very strong but it is non-linear because the more wealth you start with the more ability you have to increase your wealth beyond the wealth you were born into. This non-linear feature of the relationship weakens the observed simple linear correlation such as used in the cited "elasticity" index.

Such calculations should be done on income percentile, not dollars per se. That would eliminate what you are talking about.

 

[Shadowy Man]

The laws haven't caught up with the times yet.

So, is this your answer to ksen's question?

 

[doubtingt]

how The US compares in mobility to other countries

http://www.epi.org/publication/usa-lags-peer-countries-mobility/

In truth, those correlations for father-son income are somewhat low in absolute terms, even if higher than most other countries. A .47 correlation means that only 22% of the variance in son's income is predicted by father's income, meaning that 78% of the variance is not predicted. However, such correlations are a really poor under-estimate of the true dependence of income on parental income. Changes in relative income inequality from generation to generation will lower the correlation, even if the change is increased inequality and it reflects a rich get even richer effect from father to son. IOW, if a person born into poverty stays poor but a person born into wealth is able to use that wealth to get even wealthier than their parents (which is what every scientific model of recent economic changes in the US shows is happening), this will reduce the inter-generational correlation. IOW, the dependence of wealth on parental wealth is very strong but it is non-linear because the more wealth you start with the more ability you have to increase your wealth beyond the wealth you were born into. This non-linear feature of the relationship weakens the observed simple linear correlation such as used in the cited "elasticity" index.

Such calculations should be done on income percentile, not dollars per se. That would eliminate what you are talking about.

No, I don't think that wouldn't eliminate the problem. That would just hide the real difference in wealth that separates the 10th compared to 11th percentile versus the 90th compared to the 91st percentile. Although each difference is 1 percentile, the amount of dollars difference is not the same in the two comparisons and neither is the base amount of money that the two percentiles share. It isn't percentile that affords income power but actual dollars and the impact of each difference in dollars is a function of the base amount of dollars the person with less has. IOW, if the person with more $ is still making so little that they need to use it all just to survive rather than in ways that the money "works for them", then that difference in dollars has little impact. But the same difference in dollars can be very impactful if the person with the lesser amount is already comfortable and has all needs met and thus the added dollars are all available for "work".

IOW, the actual relationship is driven by dollars but in a non-linear way, so the best way to capture that impact is to model it in real dollars (not percentile) but use a non-linear equation, such as a power function, to estimate the explained variance rather than a linear correlation. If a relationship is non-linear, then the non-linear equation will explain more variance in offspring income than a linear one.

 

[lpetrich]

There is growing evidence that the latter plays a huge role in language development that would impact just the kind of tests reported in this study. Between the ages for 6 months and 3 years, parents in poverty talk to and around their kids about 1/3 as much (30 million fewer words) as parents in upper income brackets. In addition, when poor parents do talk to their kids, they use less varied vocabulary, shorter sentences, and less likely to have actual conversations with their kids where they listen to and respond to what the kid is saying. Also, poor parents speech was much more likely to entail scolding, which is likely to trigger negative emotion that interferes with language processing and undermines any benefit from language exposure.

doubtingt, any references on that? I looked through the other pages at that site and I couldn't find anything. I tried scholar.google.com, but it's not very clear that they discuss issues like that.

Other more recent research I've seen at conferences shows that kids pick up language better if a single speaker does most of the talking to them rather than many caregivers. Phonetics are critical to language development and to a young child's ear, the same word spoken by different voices sounds like a different word. It's plausible that this creates confusion in children figuring out what words go with what things and what words go together. This could be relevant if kids in poverty tend to have more turn-taking caregivers (e.g., extended family, siblings) than wealthier families.

Any references on that also?

 

[Sabine Grant]

Other more recent research I've seen at conferences shows that kids pick up language better if a single speaker does most of the talking to them rather than many caregivers. Phonetics are critical to language development and to a young child's ear, the same word spoken by different voices sounds like a different word. It's plausible that this creates confusion in children figuring out what words go with what things and what words go together. This could be relevant if kids in poverty tend to have more turn-taking caregivers (e.g., extended family, siblings) than wealthier families

If that is the case, one has to wonder why children who benefit of exposure to a foreign language while residing in a foreign nation will absorb the said language as their second language and that without any confusion regardless of multiple speakers and medium of communication in the said language.

 

[fromderinside]

If that is the case, one has to wonder why children who benefit of exposure to a foreign language while residing in a foreign nation will absorb the said language as their second language and that without any confusion regardless of multiple speakers and medium of communication in the said language.

Unfortunately mostly we're stuck with parents or grandparent or guardian or custodian as primary language model in most urban areas here in the good old US of A. So we usually see the worst of both worlds in action. Guardians who are into surviving who are uneducated. They either ignore or badly model with results like a four year old who doesn't know the names of colors in any language, but, she is obviously interested and eager to learn and please. Yeah its a waste, but, its what is there and not all the Jasmines in the world will make it any better. ...and as long as the prime directive is to keep government out of our business such will continue on steroids.