Studies find it’s getting harder and harder to pull yourself up by your bootstraps

The telegraph On-Line ^ | March 27,2005 | Mary Deibel and Lance Gay

[M. Dodge Thomas]

In an earlier era, Americans who didn’t strike it rich at home could take Horace Greeley’s advice to “Go West” for new opportunities to reinvent their lives.

World War II gave way to another kind of mobility. The GI Bill and an end to legal segregation ushered in “a period when people from poor backgrounds were able to get a college education, buy a home and start a business,” said New York University wealth expert Edward Wolff.

These days, various new studies suggest that the recipe for financial success may depend more on having successful parents than pulling yourself up by your bootstraps...

[M. Dodge Thomas]

"Trend-watchers looking for changes in family fortunes have turned to the 40-year Panel Study of Income Dynamics, which has followed the finances of more than 5,000 American families and their 65,000 members for three generations. Economists often break down income and wealth into quintiles, or one-fifth blocks of the population.

Following these families, economists Katharine Bradbury and Jane Katz of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston found that income mobility has declined since the 1960s. Families’ ability to move to a higher level declined in the 1980s and 1990s."

[risk]

And just to survive, mothers are back in the factories and offices. Yes, globalism hurts.

[traderrob6]

You want see hurt, try isolationism for awhile.

[warchild9]

I still think a single clever idea and hard work will manage wonders in a person's life. An unwillingness to give up and having a supportive spouse are critical, as well.

[annyokie]

You got it.

[Holly_P]

Or you could go the John Kerry route and marry a very rich person.

[elbucko]

The impediments that federal, state and local governments impose upon an individual starting a business are astounding to the person who has worked for someone else all their life.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"Whether it is harder to get ahead financially in today’s economy compared to previous centuries is impossible to prove because the data does not exist."

Then what's the point of this article? Maybe we're miles ahead of "way back when" and it's easier to just make up statistics than to have something to compare them to? (That would be my guess.) And isn't this a tad "apples to oranges?" I mean, who determines what a good "standard of living" is these days, compared to Yesteryear? Owning TWO Model A Fords meant "you made it?" LOL!

I've never missed a meal. Luck? Pluck? Hard work and a willingness to do what needed to be done? All of the above.

I'll continue to cheer for the 6% the article cites that make it out of poverty and ignore the other whiners.

[KateatRFM]

It's tough to pull yourself up by your designer bootstraps when The Rich won't give you any boots.

My parents came from very large families who survived the Great Depression without going on the dole -- and I have the feeling that today's generation could do it too, if they put their minds (and their backs) into it. However, whining appears to be the preferred method of getting ahead today, that nobody will "give you a chance." Aren't we supposed to make our own chances?

[joshhiggins]

" income mobility has declined since the 1960s."

And when was it we started our "Great Society" program to fix this problem?

[Clemenza]

DUH! A key factor in success is the VALUES and EXAMPLE handed down by successful parents or grandparents! My father had the example of his grandfather (dirt poor Polish immigrant who eventually ran his own regionally succesful construction company) and his father, who pushed him to get educated. My father became a succesful executive in the auto industry and I hope to use his example of hard work, drive, intelligence and dilligence to succeed in my field.

In looking at successful people (I know more than a few) and people who "go along to get along" (likewise), I tend to find that their drive and ambition was usually, though not always, inherited from their parents or a mentor they had as a youth.

[risk]

Describe "isolationism." What we have now is the decimation of our workforce. The middle class is being squeezed from the top, the middle, and the bottom, and much of the loss of economic standing comes from illegal immigration below and cheaply imported skilled labor in the middle, as well as exported and offshored jobs. How about trading with partners who have similar standards for fair and safe labor, standards for environmental protection, and so forth? Right now we have corporate welfare in the form of cheap immigrant labor, corporate responsibilities offloaded to locations in regions without standards, and "free trade" with countries like China which are ramping up to attack us as I write this.

For free trade to work, it can only be conducted among equals. I wouldn't describe India or China as equals by any means. People who will work at the poverty level only drag Americans further downward.

The past 50 years have shown a marked decline in family economic independence. That is the result of cheap trinkets and offshored jobs.

[warchild9]

Kerry started out rich, as did W.
In the early Sixties, my father-in-law began as a Cuban anti-Communist refugee with 26 cents in his pocket, a pregnant wife, two kids (one of them the present Mrs. Warchild), and no English. In fifteen years, he sold a multi-million dollar business he'd built with no one's help (and lots of obstacles, including corrupt American politicians from both parties and the Mob).
He's been an inspiration to me, and anyone can see through his story that a clever idea and hard work succeeds. (His clever idea involved importing the right thing--from Latin America--at the right time.)

[The Westerner]

You hit the nail on the head. Reports from Red China are that it's easier for mom and pop to start a business there than in the United States. As Ayn Rand said in Atlas Shrugged, end regulation now.

[dufekin]

Last I checked, the Great Society intended to erase poverty by miring tens of millions of African-Americans in it by attracting them to free housing projects (called "ghettos" for a reason) and hiding these projects from public view. I think that the Great Society has succeeded wildly.

[traderrob6]

You have been listening to Lou Dobbs too much.

[Diana in Wisconsin]

"Aren't we supposed to make our own chances?"

I LOVE it when I meet like-minded people here!

My Grandpa survived The Depression and supported a wife, a son, himself, his brother and his Dad during those years (and beyond, actually.) Grandpa prided himself on the fact that he was NEVER unemployed during those years. He did anything he could, and he worked 2-3 jobs and even had a paper route. (A grown man with a paper route. Do you ever see that today?)

His favorite thing to tell us Grandkids was, "If you need a helping hand, you'll find one at the end of your arm. Get out there and get busy!"

Gosh, I miss him. He inspires me to this day. :)

And I need inspiration these days. *SIGH* I recently lost my job and DH is changing careers. But I WELCOME this challenge and know we'll rise above it, easily. (Huh? What's that Grandpa? Ok. I'll get busy, LOL!)

[risk]

You've been living in a globalist fantasy world that doesn't exist. Wake up and smell the coffee. If we don't start thinking "America First" at the fundamental level, there won't be an America for much longer. Where is the optimism when whole companies are relocating their offices overseas? Are you even aware of what is happening? We have California importing Indians to teach our children. Think about it. This isn't what you want.

[Clemenza]

Yeah, we live in bigger houses than ever, drive bigger cars, and have more "toys" then we know what to do with. As late as the 1950s, many "middle class" people were still living in urban row houses, had one car, and rarely ate out of the house. I would say that for most of us, life has improved. I don't see too many professional folk of any race standing on bread lines or living in urban slums.

The Social(ist) wing of the conservative movement is one side of a coin with the Naderites/Hoffaites on the other.

[Nataku X]

Yup, I guess I imagined all those immigrants owning coffee shops and gas stations.