tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post1213416166849785269..comments2024-03-18T13:27:42.621-04:00Comments on CURMUDGUCATION: The Wealth Gap: Worse Than You ThinkPeter Greenehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-267841901542933742017-02-11T23:21:13.678-05:002017-02-11T23:21:13.678-05:00It would be helpful if the Demos study had attempt...It would be helpful if the Demos study had attempted to control for age in their analysis. If you looked at my household when i was younger, you would see a negative net worth because of our mortgage. As my household aged, our net worth increased and became positive. It seems to me that it is possible that African American households with some college are, on average, younger than white households with some college. If so, the report by Demos is demonstrates that young households have less wealth than older households. This would not be an especially surprising or alarming finding.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-29556384831823551062017-02-11T23:10:03.039-05:002017-02-11T23:10:03.039-05:00If your interested in the issues raised by this pa...If your interested in the issues raised by this paper, you might be interested in the Equality of Opportunity Project (http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/). Instead of using the small data sets of the Demos study, less than 3,500 households, they use large data sets of 30 million to understand how colleges and universities impact income mobility.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-40034589805173439982017-02-11T19:21:13.464-05:002017-02-11T19:21:13.464-05:00Mr. Backman:
From the article, the reason they loo...Mr. Backman:<br />From the article, the reason they looked at wealth rather than income:<br /><br />"The racial wealth gap matters because of the central role wealth plays in enabling families to both handle current financial <br />challenges and make investments in their future. Families that have accumulated some wealth are better equipped to manage unanticipated expenses like an emergency medical bill, or disruptions in household income such as a layoff, without falling into debt or poverty. Over the longer term, wealth can expand the prospects of the next generation, helping to pay for college, provide <br />a down payment for a first home, or capitalize a new business."<br /><br />And: "Because white families accumulated <br />more wealth over a history in which black and Latino families were excluded from many wealth-building opportunities through discriminatory policies in housing, banking, education and other <br />areas, white families today have, in general, greater resources to pass on to their offspring."<br /><br />The point of the article is that a college education and a two-parent family are not enough to narrow the gap. As Peter says, no matter how fast you run, you can't catch up if you start too far behind. And, as he says, "...we're living through proof that if you're rich enough, you can make every irresponsible choice imaginable to humans and still end up in the White House". The more wealth you have, the easier it is to make "good choices", and the more you can mess up and get do-overs. CEOs who run their company into the ground can still get a golden parachute and a comparable job. Kids with "affluenza" are allowed to have no consequences. So making this a moral issue really isn't relevant.Rebecca deCocahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13168718846105012814noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-22196301329832012942017-02-11T06:39:07.054-05:002017-02-11T06:39:07.054-05:00That's probably why absolutely nobody-- not th...That's probably why absolutely nobody-- not the original authors, and not me-- argues that Black and Latino persons should not make responsible choices. But it's much easier to dismiss the conclusions of reports like this if you misrepresent them with the straw man "Oh, they're arguing that non-white non-wealthy folks shouldn't bother to behave responsibly." Peter Greenehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16511193640285760299noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-59682363835324561122017-02-10T22:48:42.492-05:002017-02-10T22:48:42.492-05:00I read the piece and there are serious methodologi...I read the piece and there are serious methodological issues. At the most basic level, it looks at wealth rather than income. There are several studies that show that regardless of race, making positive choices results in income mobility the same for someone born poor as someone born rich. See link.<br />http://csweb.brookings.edu/content/research/essays/2014/saving-horatio-alger.html#<br /><br />Even a Journal entirely devoted to blacks and education concedes that black college graduates earn the same as white college graduates.<br />http://www.jbhe.com/news_views/47_four-year_collegedegrees.html<br /><br />There are several other issues - aggregation of those who start college with those who complete a degree - even though only 39% of blacks who start college complete a degree compared to 62% of whites (even though about the same percentage of college graduates from both races matriculate - about 65%).<br />https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/race-gap-narrows-in-college-enrollment-but-not-in-graduation/<br /><br />But the worst element of their argument is the implied conclusion. Let's say they are right in all elements - that blacks can do nothing to entirely close the racial gap (and that wealth is all that matters). They imply what Greene states explicitly - "stop repeating the fairy take that we don't owe anybody anything and so Other People should just step up and grab their bootstraps ..." However, several times, they concede that making positive choices (e.g education, two-parent family) DOES improve black fortunes relative to blacks that don't. If so, WHY do blacks make destructive choices - 72% of black kids are born to single parents, 29% of black kids drop out of school ? In sum, even if you accept the paper's argument, it STILL doesn't make sense since blacks should maximize their fortunes by making positive choices even if doing so (in the article's contention) would leave them short of comparable whites. alanbackmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16174033131550945945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-2062264022843341202017-02-10T22:25:03.025-05:002017-02-10T22:25:03.025-05:00Wow. Wow. Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01223251137400603071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6534665086749553287.post-89171289122599316752017-02-10T14:49:24.117-05:002017-02-10T14:49:24.117-05:00Truly eye-opening. It's too bad that many peop...Truly eye-opening. It's too bad that many people won't believe facts that go against their in-grained beliefs. And if you haven't studied statistics, especially since there's so much sketchy "research" out there, it's easy to not be able to recognize what's valid and what's not.Rebecca deCocahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13168718846105012814noreply@blogger.com