WSJ: For the Record -- Despite what you may read, the American Dream is alive and well.

opinionjournal.com ^ | May 18, 2005 | ALAN REYNOLDS

[OESY]

Major newspapers are in the throes of Mobility Mania: who "makes it" in America, and why; who doesn't, and why not. The Wall Street Journal began a series last week titled "Challenges to the American Dream." The New York Times followed suit with a multiparter on "Class in America," which aims to disparage the notion that the U.S. is a land of opportunity by claiming that "new research on mobility, the movement of families up and down the economic ladder, shows there is far less of it than economists once thought and less than most people believe."...

[I]ncome distribution is an agenda-driven ideological fixation that frequently impairs journalistic judgment. To fully understand this non-news about unchanged class mobility, it helps to focus on a few reasons why some people earn more than others--they work harder, and have more experience and/or more schooling. Some observations:

• Households with two full-time workers earn five times as much as households in which nobody works....

• Experienced supervisors earn twice as much as young trainees....

• Those with four or more years of college earn three times as much as high school dropouts....

It is statistically dubious to compare long-term growth of average income in any top income group with growth below. Only the top group has no income ceiling, and the lower income limit defining membership in that top group rises whenever incomes are rising....

The endless academic fascination with murky income distribution figures generally ignores differences in work effort and focuses on formal schooling--a wider "skill premium" between those with and without a college degree....

[G]ood parenting matters to a child's lifetime success....

"[G]enerous social welfare programs... discourage work and hence investment in workplace based skills.... Subsidizing work... can reduce the incentives to acquire skills and so perpetuate poverty across generations."...

[OESY]

Mr. Reynolds, senior fellow at the Cato Institute, is writing a book on income distribution for Greenwood Press.

[superiorslots]

• Households with two full-time workers earn five times as much as households in which nobody works....
• Experienced supervisors earn twice as much as young trainees....
• Those with four or more years of college earn three times as much as high school dropouts....




Did it take a study to figure this out an how much did it cost???

[LowCountryJoe]

Enjoyed this portion this morning when I read it in the print edition.

The discovery that something has not changed, or might have moved imperceptibly in either direction, would not normally be considered front-page news. But income distribution is an agenda-driven ideological fixation that frequently impairs journalistic judgment. To fully understand this non-news about unchanged class mobility, it helps to focus on a few reasons why some people earn more than others--they work harder, and have more experience and/or more schooling. Some observations:

• Households with two full-time workers earn five times as much as households in which nobody works. Median income for households with two full-time earners was $85,517 in 2003 compared with $15,661 for households in which nobody worked. Median income for households with one worker who worked full-time all year was $60,852, compared with $28,704 for those who worked part-time for 26 weeks or less.

Alan Blinder of Princeton emphasized this point in a 1980 study: "The richest fifth of families supplied over 30% of the total weeks worked in the economy," he wrote, "while the poorest fifth supplied only 7.5%. Thus, on a per-week-of-work basis, the income ratio between rich and poor was only 2-to-1. This certainly does not seem like an unreasonable degree of inequality."

Glad to see that the Journal made it available so that even the Doom & Gloom crowd could see it here on this forum

[LowCountryJoe]

Believe it or not superiorslots, there are some people in this world that cannot understand fairly simple (to perhaps moderately complex) concepts even when the evidence is laid out in front of them...ya know what I'm sayin'?

[rdb3]

That's why I tend to ignore ideologues.

[superiorslots]

Quote: Believe it or not superiorslots, there are some people in this world that cannot understand fairly simple (to perhaps moderately complex) concepts even when the evidence is laid out in front of them...ya know what I'm sayin'?



I know what you are saying. How many times have I tried to explain to you, toddster and rude that we are giving all the goodies away to china and you guy's still don't get it...

[expat_panama]

on a per-week-of-work basis, the income ratio between rich and poor was only 2-to-1...

Well put; and it doesn't stop there either.  We can also take into account spent on education, the value of  the number of years someone stays in one field (as opposed to just quitting the workforce for a decade or two), the effect of taxes, etc., ---we end up taking out the drama and seeing this income distribution rant for what it is:  the same old Bolshevik tripe in a new package.

The democrat/Buchanan coalition drags out this class warfare banner every couple years; the above chart is from a study by the Heritage Foundation during an earlier coup attempt by the left.  You'd think the reds would get tired of dragging this out so often, but it seems to be a lot like the constant bringing up of GWB's national guard service the way Rather keeps 'finding' new memos every couple years.

[LowCountryJoe]

What did we give away again? We've consumed the goods that they made and sent and they've loaned us money (through debt purchases) and helped fuel our economic expansion. Can you once and for all explain yourself without going down some other rabbit hole?

[Plutarch]

The same people harping about poverty and income inequality are the same ones who encourage and abet illegal alien entry into the U.S. Each illegal alien entering directly increases poverty, and income differences and indirectly lowers the wages of the lesser skilled low income native population.

But the elite political and business class likes the idea of a peasantry, to gain political power and exploit economically respectively.

[Mase]

Could anyone really believe most workers have rarely had a real raise in three decades? Real income per household member rose to $22,966 in 2003 from $16,420 in 1983 (in 2003 dollars)--a 40% gain.

Reynolds should spend a few minutes on an FR economics thread to see just what some conservatives are willing to believe and advocate.

Fortunately, he is a reliable source for facts debunking the many myths the doom 'n gloomers (and other assorted protectionists) would have us believe. Thanks for posting!

[Toddsterpatriot]

we are giving all the goodies away to china and you guy's still don't get it...

Another fact free rant from Oprah, I mean superior.