Social mobility in the US, needs some help

Have anyone heard about this study?

http://www.dallasfed.org/fed/annual/1999p/ar95.pdf

It`s the study that claims that poverty is no great deal, because income mobility is so huge. Do you know any good critique of this study?

...I can't remember if it was Bill Moyer or NPR where they said that mobility is much less likely to happen in this country than in England. Freepers like it like this. They believe in an American aristocracy.

There are definently problems with that study. A huge problem is that they have included students and retirees! That creates huge opportunities for statistical mumbo jumbo. Also, they have excluded people that have been in prison, and that actually discards a lot of the male poor!

There was a guy who was a street person with virtually no money. He needed 15 cents so he could get a burger. I gave him 16 cents. I talked to him a little. Appearently he has a college degree. It is extremely sad that anybody who can get a college degree and live on the streets and speaks very poorly of a society.

You don`t know what kind of college degree? Are there to many with college degrees in America also these days?

at the Cain's Ballroom (a sort of artsy old and fun place with a ton of history)...waiting in line for tickets, a guy wandered up to us (our group: 4 semi-hippy types from Muskogee) and asked for change - he was hungry. First impulse was to tell him to haul ass, but I thought I detected a spark of something that didn't quite fit with my impression of what a homeless 'bum' was like so I just started talking with him.

Now, I never claimed to be a socialogist, but I damn sure can recognize intellect when I see it. This guy was a damn smart man. I don't recall the details now, but it was my first encounter with such a person. And there may be some truth to the claim that men like him have some mental issues, but they aren't due to a lack of education or common sense.

Anyway, we invited him to come to the show. He was amazed, and accepted with some reluctance. We had a great time...we bought him a couple of beers and he, in turn, amazed -us- with his perspicacity and appreciation of things we never dreamed would cross the horizon of someone living in the street. (Actually, under it, as we found when we left the Cain's.)

He showed us his 'home' - a cherished spot beneath the overpass just a couple blocks away. We gave him whatever money we had left and wished him well. I've thought about the guy many times since. And regretted not doing more for him. :-(

edit: fixed a lysdexic error...;-)

Just from my own dealings with hundreds of families, I'd guess that most people live in at least three quintiles of income during their life.

Almost every successful businessowner can tell you about a time in his life where he was near the bottom. In fact, over the years, I make it a point to ask successful families about their early married years. I do it for business reasons as it tends to get the wife on my side as she can tell stories of the tiny homes they first owned and how she worked to make ends meet. It's a real source of pride.

My own life, I was a newspaper reporter making $ 15,000 a year. I had three years in a row as a stockbroker where I made $ 120,000 and more each year. Now I've switched companies and will probably be back in the $ 70,000 range for a year or two.

I also see the people who used to have big money, but now have much worse jobs and are eating up their 401k money every few months just to afford to live.

Yes, I'm pretty sure that social mobility, both up and down is a reality in the US. There are some stories below about homeless people with college degrees. That's just another example, because that homeless person was probably not at the bottom ten years ago and probably won't be there ten years from now.

It does suggest that we do what we can to help people while they're in trouble because it's probably a temporary condition that we can all help them get through.

The point is that the message is that help for the poor is unessesary, because income mobility is so extremly high. The problem is that most of this mobility occurs when people are in their twenties. Heck, when you include STUDENTS in a study of income mobility, the study is sure to meassure something else that what most people actually think about when it comes to social mobility. Sure most people start small, but that`s the same in every country. You would propably would get the same results in other parts of the world like Scandinavia or East Asia also. Also, your income in the US is clearly defined by events relativly early in your life, like taking a college degree. Also, those who do achieve success without a higher education appear to set out on that path during their twenties. Actually, the study inadvertetly states that after you have hit the 30 mark, the fluctuations in your status is relativly small.