Posted on 03/04/2020 8:00:14 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Most Americans don’t believe people are rich because they work harder than other people or poor because they don’t work hard enough, according to a new study published by the Pew Research Center.
In the results of a poll released Monday, some 65% of U.S. adults said people are rich because they had more advantages in life than others, while only 33% said it’s because they work harder than others.
When it comes to the question of why people are poor, some 71% of respondents attributed it to having to face more obstacles in life. Only 26 percent of respondents in the poll conducted Jan. 6-19 among 12,638 U.S. adults who are members of the Center’s American Trends Panel, said people are poor because they don’t work hard enough.
And people’s views of the determinants of wealth from this recent poll appear to align with other recent studies that show how income inequality and other factors such as being raised in poverty has contributed to a stifling of the American dream and upward mobility for a share of the population.
The Census Bureau found that 38.1 million people in 2018 were poor, which is 1.4 million fewer poor people than in 2017. This means about one in eight Americans still live below the poverty line — $25,465 for a family with two adults and two children.
In a recent interview explaining why working hard is simply no longer enough for many to achieve the American dream, Raj Chetty, director of Opportunity Insights at Harvard University, pointed to some of his team’s research.
“Back in the 1940s and 1950s, virtually all kids in America would grow up to have a higher standard of living than their parents did. So for children born in 1940, for example, 90 percent of them went on to have a higher standard of living than their parents. And if you look at kids who were born in the 1980s, who are turning 30 today, when we’re measuring their incomes that number is down to 50 percent,” he said.
“It’s a 50-50 shot as to whether you’re going to achieve the American dream of moving up. And so, that fading of the American dream, you know, I think is of tremendous concern from an economic perspective, socially, politically, and there are a variety of factors that I think play into what’s driving that trend.
"But at a macroeconomic level, a lot of it has to do with the fact that wage rates and incomes for people in the middle of the income distribution basically haven’t gone up over the past 30 years, so most of the economic growth that’s occurred in America has gone to the very, very top of the income distribution,” he said.
The poll data from the Pew study show that respondents were deeply divided along partisan lines.
Some 82% of Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said advantages in life have more to do with why someone is rich, while 86% of this group said having faced more obstacles has more to do with why someone is poor.
Just over half of Republicans and Republican leaning respondents, however, said hard work has more to do with why a person is rich, while 45% said it is because they have more advantages.
Some 55 percent of this group said people are poor because they face more obstacles while 42% said it’s because they didn’t work hard enough.
If by “advantages” you mean intelligence, creativity, motivation and persistence, then I guess that might make some sense.
nether answer is right.
The rich are rich because they learned how to manage their money. They didn’t work any harder, if fact they probably worked far less physically demanding jobs and fewer hours than most poor people. BUT they saved and/or invested a lot of what they made instead of wasting it on frivolous crud.
This is why many poor lottery winners end up broke. Even a multi-million dollar windfall cant save them from their poor choices.
Key conclusions:
1. Damn that evil Trump
2. Socialism will fix this
the person who earns 50 grand and saves 20 of it, is FAR richer than the person who earns 100 grand and spends 120.
If you dont understand that statment, you will NEVER be rich (or at least not for long)
Working both smarter and harder has the best chance of leading to success.
Disturbing. They are probably right when it comes to the super rich. But hard work, frugality, marital status and good decision making are very important to rising out of the lowest socioeconomic ranks. One thing is a fact: if you grow up poor, refuse to work and/or improve your skills and blame someone else for your ills, you will continue to be poor. America continues to be a land of opportunity, no matter what the community organizers and commie propagandists say.
I worked with a guy right out of college who bought a Formula Ford race car, owned very fancy leather jackets and other nice clothes, and couldn’t save a dime.
We worked the same field service engineering job. In five years, I had socked enough away to buy my first house.
I’ve always wondered what happened to that guy and if his spendthrift ways doomed him.
Absolutes aren’t correct either way.
Most real Americans in a small town in the flyover states are richer than all the elites in the world combined. Cause they have a good simple job, with a loving wife and family, that puts God and Christ at the center - and they know that puts all the devils riches to shame. It’s just no contest.
Decade upon decade of indoctrination. In my experience, most wealthy people have worked for their money or are really smart. Even liberals like Bloomberg. A smaller subset do get their money without working (like the Kennedys). Its a good argument for a large inheritance tax.
The “rich”, IMO, also have often taken BIG risks in their lives, such as in investing in or building up businesses, etc., in which they could have lost everything.
many professional athletes from poor families, one hit wonder singers from poor families, child actors from poor families, and many poor lotto winners. All usually suffer the same fate.
They blow it all and are dead or bankrupt with a few years.
They were never taught how to save money or to wisely spend it, and thus lose it all fairly quickly if they get lucky and “get it” to begin with.
Professional athletes and Lotto winners are some times smart enough to know they will blow it and seek help, but those that dont will go blow it on drugs, cars, women, ect and it’s all gone or they are dead ASAP.
Obviously this explains why Elizabeth Warren lied repeatedly to make herself out to be a Native American.
My neighbor made 150K+ a year and lost his house and declared bankruptcy.
13 credit cards ballooned into a 450K home equity debt.
You can’t save people from their poor choices rich or poor.
Lots of people work very hard, and are still poor.
Better questions, they carefully did not ask:
How many people are poor because they made bad choices in life?
How many people are poor because they spent everything they made, as fast as they made it?
How many people are poor because they got deep in debt as fast as they could do it?
Being poor is the easy road to take.
Becoming wealthy is not easy. It takes discipline and thought, not just hard work.
I once worked with a technician who got a six-year loan to buy a Trans Am with every factory accessory known to man. This was back in the mid-80s.
Lots of people work hard and don’t become rich. I wouldn’t expect a poll to reflect that hard work is the reason people become rich. There are many factors that can go into a person becoming rich relative to others. Hard work, intelligence, connections, luck, natural talent of some kind, inherited wealth, etc ...
There are plenty of people with all or many of those things who didn’t become or stay rich. Hard work is seen as being more virtuous than those other factors, so rich people like to attribute their success to hard work. That’s nicer than saying “well, I’m just smarter than you.”
I will say I’ve known some very hard working people who have struggled and still struggle financially.
I’m all about respecting effort, initiative, and hard work, but not everyone was as fortunate as I in being taught to save, invest, spend wisely and live below my means. My best bud growing up- has taken maybe three vacations in 40+ years of working hard (welding and fabricating gates and doors and other equipment), honest, sober, but at 60+ is now a physical wreck with no health coverage or money in the bank; not for laziness, though.
Obviously if one neither has any life instruction courtesy parents or mentors in how to be financially responsible *AND* is lazy and or a boozer/druggie, it’s even worse.
About 3/4 or the well off guys I know got there on their own, from either scratch or from no more than I (basic middle class Catholic and strict upbringing), a couple inherited decently running enterprises and did not screw anything up, a couple were given everything on a silver platter and are dead from drugs or HIV.
It’s not an ‘either/or’, you can do everything right and still not retire with few cares, but not being stupid and/or lazy helps.
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