Not so surprising punchline:
> Just 33 children — out of nearly 800 — moved from the low-income to high-income bracket. And a similarly small number born into low-income families had college degrees by the time they turned 28.
What bothers me is not that the poor stay poor and the rich stay rich. That's pretty much the history of the world, and it's unlikely to change any time soon.[1] What bothers me is how people rationalize the very imperfect world we live in. A great example of this is how often people point to outliers in discussing the structural barriers holding back poor kids. It's not rational. Obviously the relevant question is the plight of those with median-ish determination and drive, born into different circumstances.
I've worked a little bit with inner city students, and what just kills me is meeting kids who are like 90th percentile of determination and drive. Not the 99.9th percentile kids that will go to Harvard on a free ride despite growing up in the ghetto, but the kids who are a notch below. Those kids are one wrong step away from never making it out of the ghetto. Their counter-parts, born into well-off families, on the other hand, have a great shot at ending up at the upper end of the income spectrum.
[1] One of the things that really messes with my brain is how hard I'm trying to make sure my daughter has an unfair advantage in life. Not just in terms of education, etc, but even in terms of expectations and aspirations. How do you tell your kid to work hard so they can be anything they want to be, when you your own circumstances belie that assertion?
> Just 33 children — out of nearly 800 — moved from the low-income to high-income bracket. And a similarly small number born into low-income families had college degrees by the time they turned 28.
What bothers me is not that the poor stay poor and the rich stay rich. That's pretty much the history of the world, and it's unlikely to change any time soon.[1] What bothers me is how people rationalize the very imperfect world we live in. A great example of this is how often people point to outliers in discussing the structural barriers holding back poor kids. It's not rational. Obviously the relevant question is the plight of those with median-ish determination and drive, born into different circumstances.
I've worked a little bit with inner city students, and what just kills me is meeting kids who are like 90th percentile of determination and drive. Not the 99.9th percentile kids that will go to Harvard on a free ride despite growing up in the ghetto, but the kids who are a notch below. Those kids are one wrong step away from never making it out of the ghetto. Their counter-parts, born into well-off families, on the other hand, have a great shot at ending up at the upper end of the income spectrum.
[1] One of the things that really messes with my brain is how hard I'm trying to make sure my daughter has an unfair advantage in life. Not just in terms of education, etc, but even in terms of expectations and aspirations. How do you tell your kid to work hard so they can be anything they want to be, when you your own circumstances belie that assertion?