The Case for Rational Optimism by Frank Robinson

Author:Frank Robinson [Robinson, Frank]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781412810135
Publisher: Taylor and Francis
Published: 2017-07-27T16:00:00+00:00

15

The Two Americas: Rich and Richer

Rich getting richer, poor getting poorer, and the middle class in freefall. People go hungry so the few can live high on the hog. That’s a picture many of us hold. Politicians parade their deep concern (lest they be tagged as “not getting it”). For decades, we’ve suffered what the media darkly calls “these economic times.” All this columnist George Will has labeled “economic hypochondria.”

Am I going to tell you that America is a paradise on Earth? Well, you bet I am. Sure, we have problems, and not everyone is in fat city. But, looking sensibly at the big picture, “these economic times” are awfully good for most of us. And even today’s poorest are better off than most people used to be.

Poverty, inequality, and economic troubles are often exaggerated for political effect. Advocacy groups and various bureaucracies want us to think poverty is widespread and dire so that we’ll support their programs. There is also an appetite for indignation and moral preening, to knock American society. And yet the politics of class resentment and economic warfare has never gotten much traction in America. That’s because while many of the elite see the poor as trapped in poverty, most poor people themselves don’t see it that way. They hope to achieve the American dream. And that’s not naïve—many do achieve it.

The picture of a rigidly unequal nation with the poor stuck permanently at the bottom is indeed mostly false. Yes, there are some unfortunates meeting that description. But, more typically, low income tends to be temporary. There are many causes: being a student or single mother, illness or disability, divorce, job loss, recent immigration. But many single moms will marry, many ill people recover, most students graduate into the workforce, most unemployed find jobs, most immigrants assimilate and prosper.

And here’s the big one: many at the low end are there merely because they’re just starting out in the world of work and family life. This can make economic inequality statistics highly misleading. Someone younger is bound to look very unequal, in terms of income and accumulated wealth, when compared to people decades older with years of working life under their belts. Affluence spikes for middle-aged Americans, in their highest earning years, with their child rearing and college costs behind them, their pension accounts and home equity swelling, and their debts dropping. In contrast, younger people earn less, often delay their careers to get more education, have kids at home (and then, in college), and their debts (including student loans and mortgages) are high. But they will grow older and most will naturally progress into the affluent ranks described above.

So most “poor” folks don’t stay poor. America’s stratification of wealth and income is not some rigid class structure, but one of dynamic flux. Three out of five families falling into poverty in any year will rise out of it the next. A University of Michigan study calculated that although the overall US poverty rate hovers around

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.