[zerospinboson]

Originally Posted by Xenophon

There is certainly a lot of intergenerational mobility among the top four quintiles. So let's look at the bottom quintile. There's a bunch of research that suggests that the percentage of the bottom quintile who are there for the very long term (thinking single-generation here) is pretty small. So... How do we measure which quintile your previous generation came from? (I don't have a good answer for this, btw.)

If we restrict the question to the much smaller group who are in that bottom quintile for the long term (perhaps even their entire lives), we are certainly looking at the "hard-core poverty" end of things. People certainly do move out of that quintile (from one generation to the next), but I suspect that it is less frequent than one might like.

See, for example (although the wiki article does seem to lack references) this, or more interestingly (although more dependent on a single author), this:

This is exceptionally strong evidence that the distribution of income in the United States has gotten (just as Jim Webb claims) substantially more unequal over time. In fact, the trend is so strong that it simply is not in dispute among economists and other social scientists who study inequality—in those circles the live debate is not about whether inequality has grown sharply, but what the causes of that growth have been.
The best way to measure mobility is not via snapshots of the whole population, but by tracking a set of individuals over the course of their lives and seeing how they do compared to how their parents did. Economists who undertake such studies have found that, at a minimum, genuine social mobility has not increased over the past generation, and in fact may have actually slowed.

Conversely, if you are born into a family in the top decile, you have a 26.7% chance of staying there as an adult, a 43.2% of being in the top quintile, and a 77.7% chance of being somewhere in the top half of the income distribution. You have just a 5% chance of falling into the bottom quintile, and only a 1.4% chance of falling into the bottom decile.

In short, if you are born in the poorest rung (decile) of American society, you are over 26 times more likely than someone born in the top rung to stay on that bottom rung as an adult. And if you’re born into the top rung, you’re over 53 times more likely to get there yourself as an adult that someone born on the lowest rung.

Is that fair? Not if you take seriously the notion that America should be characterized by substantive equality of opportunity. (And by the way, from the point of view of African-Americans, the actual picture is even worse than these figures suggest, as Hertz found that upward mobility among African-Americans from the bottom to top quartile was less than half the rates observed among whites.)

The rest of that article also seems worth reading, but I won't quote any more, as you can probably click links just as well as I can ;-)
Another source, perhaps:

He and his colleagues show that there is less social mobility in the US and UK than in the Nordic countries, where incomes are more equal. In the US, 40% of the sons of fathers in the bottom quintile of earners (as of 1974) were themselves in the bottom quintile in the late 1990s. That compares to just 25-28% in the Nordic countries.

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Or we could state this a different way. Who decides how children "should be" raised. I certainly have strong ideas. So do you. So do lots of people. Problem is, we all disagree! So who decides? Parents? Courts? The city/state/federal government? Who makes the decisions?

Arguably both people who want to become plumbers and people who want to become lawyers need to make that choice, so I'd prefer just talking about the part of raising kids that deals with "instilling work ethic".
Apologies for inserting myself as a quote:

Originally Posted by zerospinboson

While I agree with most of what you say here, I do want to contest the statement that people always believe in whatever system they grew up with. Why else did MLK, Ghandi, women's suffrage, etc. etc. happen? I would hope that presenting arguments for alternatives does something to people, and that they're not entirely too blasé to even consider reconsidering some of the things they've grown up with.

It's fine to believe that people should work for their money, and work to achieve, but "affirmative action" (like, to be cheeky, the Marshall Plan) does work if you can that way help people who are facing otherwise insurmountable obstacles, like initial investment money.

How is it good for society to let someone who is otherwise fully educated sit collecting welfare because he/she became ill once, who then can't or couldn't get medical care because society figures "tough luck. shouldn't have gotten sick while unemployed"? Healthy people are more likely to stay motivated, to be hired, work harder, and perhaps even like the government that's keeping them healthy better.
Anecdote:

I know a guy living in SF who is uninsured like this, and when he goes to a "free clinic" to get a prescription for some sort of airway-related illness, they still send him a 200$ bill somehow. How is that a "free clinic"?

Consider this: this medication costs 20$ when prescribed, or 70$ when bought online, and without a prescription. So if you have insurance, it will cost you 20$, and if you don't, either 220$ or 70$, take your pick.

In comparison, a (5 minute) consult with a GP here will set you back €15-25.
How is it rational to say that people "shouldn't get sick," "shouldn't have had parents who didn't instill the protestant work ethic," etc.? And what is there to gain from creating extra hurdles for those that already get less medical care?

Accountability is one thing, but only creating opportunities for those that are most driven is just a strange form of elitism; it's just a fact of human nature that most people aren't as driven as Mandela was to see something through, so why not try to at least get them a decent education, in stead of either getting "the best" education when you get into MIT or an ivy league, or hardly any at all when you drop out of HS because you lived in the inner city with terrible teachers and no-good schoolbooks.

Originally Posted by Xenophon

The U.S. answer has traditionally been that decisions about child-rearing rest firmly with the parent themselves as long as those decisions stay clear of outright abuse. Other cultures have made other decisions; this is our tradition.

Don't be silly ;-) Contrary to what you might've heard, we are not sent to socialism camps as kids, nor are parents forced to take a course in what values to raise your kids with. I was just talking about societal expectations (such as the jock culture which we don't have here) of what kinds of jobs and vocations are considered appropriate and strive-worthy by parents living in, say, the bottom 30-40%, who are either not highly educated or actively resentful of gaining such an education?

Originally Posted by Xenophon

[SNIP; Apologies for being a bit inconsistent in indicating when I snip stuff, but it's usually because I don't have a direct answer to it, or because I don't have a problem with it]
By comparison, the schools recognize that families in the bottom two quintiles just can't cover any of that expense, so they don't ask them to -- they typically just waive whatever costs aren't covered by State and Federal aid. This isn't quite universal across all of US higher ed, but it's darned close!
So if your family is in the bottom 40% economically, your biggest worry about college isn't paying for it -- that'll be taken care of. Your big worry is doing well enough in school to be admitted in the first place! And many Universities have very active outreach programs to help disadvantaged high-school students catch up with the necessary education for college admission. Again, not all colleges, but it's very widespread! Twenty-seven of the thirty-plus colleges and universities here in Pittsburgh do this (for example). My university has a (free!) summer program for hundreds (many hundreds) of disadvantaged students from the Western third of the state.

This certainly is admirable, but how many people per year does this affect or can this help, and isn't it already too late for a fair number of those kids? See my own quote for more background.

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Caritas is very efficient in several important ways. First, those of us who go out and volunteer and work for what we believe in give what we can afford for causes we wish to support. Finally, if you wish to talk about "efficiency" I would point out that the cost to educate a student from near-nowhere to a GED through that charity is a tiny fraction of what is spent on the "education" that they didn't actually get in the public schools in the first place.
Inefficient is the wrong charge! I'll grant the "small-scale" aspect. But in terms of financial efficiency they kick butt and take names.

Sorry, I wasn't doubting that it's more efficient, specifically because only those people who want it go for it, just that it reaches way too many people. When you set up a society, you don't leave the question whether or not people will receive a basic education (considering we're talking about literacy and a GED here) to chance. As such, you shouldn't leave it to individuals to provide this service. Letting those people depend on charity is demeaning, as it suggests that it's not a right they have, just something they should be grateful for receiving. Access to education is a fundamental right, not something that should depend on chance, especially not in a first world country.
Furthermore, I don't really agree that those who "don't want to learn" need to remain as uneducated as they are. Who cares that they're not motivated, there is lots of services-type work that they can do that doesn't require it.

Originally Posted by Xenophon

By comparison, when you mandate things via government action and pay for them via taxation, you take from everyone (semi-voluntarily at best!) and spend the $$ in directions that the taxpayers may well disagree with. See the idea of "tyranny of the majority" for just one principled objection to this.

Sorry, I don't buy the "principled objection to taxation", as it is applied in far too many cases, and usually for bad reasons, like short-sightedness.
UHC is definitely obtainable at a cost lower than what your current system eats up (just look at the fact that we did it; this is not to say that it might not come with other drawbacks, I don't know if it does, I'm just observing that the "it's unaffordable so/and I don't want to pay for other people's healthcare" argument is one that is both inhumane as well as bad for your GDP)

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Secondly, the people who choose to take advantage of (for example) the adult education charity my wife volunteers for are there because they want to be. The time, energy, and money she puts in go to recipients who want it rather than to those who are being "forced to sit there in a boring class in school."

Agreed. That said, see above. They'll be just as unhappy with needing to work an educated job as an uneducated one, so if they can do both, why not let them do the one that's better for the economy as a whole? (by giving them more spending money as well as your country a better educated workforce)

Originally Posted by Xenophon

Your point about physical development of the brain is well taken. It's probably a large part of the reason why (as I wrote) "education outcomes are far more strongly influenced by family attitudes than by the outside world" (I'm curious why you snipped that bit, btw). Because (in some families) the family pushes the kid into working at learning when they wouldn't have done so on their own.

Sorry, was unintentional, or I felt I answered it somewhere later in my post.
Yes, I'm aware of the fact that parents can be helpful too; I'm just wondering why so much depends on them. Again, see above.

Originally Posted by Xenophon

I observe, however, that the typical government-run approach (in America, at least) amounts to "let's spend lots more money to do more of what already isn't working." So far that path has led to declining outcomes even as per-student expenditure has doubled (in real, inflation-adjusted dollars).

Yeah, there seems to be a problem on that front. Haven't the faintest why though, it hardly seems a necessary outcome.

Originally Posted by Xenophon

I don't claim to have a solution, however. So instead, I help attack a part of the problem where I can make a real difference -- teaching adults who were not well-served by the system when they were young. This lets them help their children (or sometimes grandchildren) with their schoolwork. It helps them value education more, because they see the difference it belatedly makes in their own lives (both in terms of better jobs and finances and also in terms of self-respect). And it shows that someone from "the other side of the tracks" cares enough to spend time and energy helping them improve their own lives.

Xenophon

P.S. Support your local literacy council!

PS. To any reader who's made it this far: my apologies that this reply is a bit on the long side.