White people have 13 dollars for every dollar held by black Americans

[Crossbones]

Sir or madam, whatever you be.

I am generally regarded on here as a conservative, and in many ways I am exactly that. I won’t recount the ways here so I won’t bore more than I usually do. Probably you and I have tangled here in the past and I think I recall that we have.

But if I was Barack Obama back when I had both the House and the Senate, I would have doubled SSDI, at least doubled it. Probably more. And do you know where I would have gotten the money? I would have means tested SS retirement. Warren Buffet does not need SS retirement. I would not need it in the future. Lots of people who get it don’t need it.

And do you know what? I think that’s a perfectly “conservatively principled” thing to do. I’m no theological scholar, but I have read the Social Encyclicals. The popes are clear in advocating societal aid to those who can’t help themselves to live a decent life. They do NOT advocate “middle class welfare”. They do NOT advocate “welfare for the rich”. People on SSDI are, by definition, “people who can’t help themselves”.

Do you know what? This year the government is giving $150/head to anyone who owned cattle in 2012. Why? Because it was a drought year. I had a few head, and it was no fun going through that drought, but I did it and without buying a single thing extra to do it, but by being very careful in what I did. And yet, the purpose of the $150 was to compensate ranchers for the extra hay they presumably bought, or for the loss on the cattle they sold because they couldn’t feed them. You didn’t really have to have bought any hay or sold any cattle to qualify. All you had to do was own the cows. I know one guy who got $90,000. He had plenty of pasture and didn’t have to sell a single one or buy a wisp of hay. And yet, he got $90,000.00. Another guy who got a lot commented wryly that it was “really a program to subsidize the equipment manufacturers and retailers” because that’s what most of the ranchers did with the money…buy new tractors, balers, whatever. I had to admit he might have been exactly right.

Two of my very middle class brothers bought new cars under “cash for clunkers”. They would have bought them anyway, though perhaps a little later. But they got thousands of dollars in subsidies to buy those cars.

But improve SSDI? No. Can’t do that. And when I see a “liberal” government do those things, I am doubly glad I’m at least an alleged conservative, so I can actually care what this society does for those who “can’t help themselves”.

Sometimes I think this country is clinically insane.

SSDI is an insurance program, not a welfare program. In general, I am ok with it - it provides a reasonable safety net for myself and my family if I become disabled and it will help in my retirement if I have one. I am against means testing because I think it then becomes difficult to draw the line and that’ll become a political football. Too many people expect too much from the program (it isn’t meant to 100% fund a retirement), but where it is at is reasonable.

Cash for Clunkers was stupid. There are also many agriculture subsidies that don’t make sense - it’s just a government giveaway to a political constituency. The Republicans could stop it if they wanted to, but they don’t (it’s their constituency).

On the original topic, I think that many working poor (not just black) living in urban regions are in a situation where it is difficult to build wealth because they usually do not own real estate. This is usually the first building block to building wealth, but if you are renter, you are subject to market conditions and the bottom of the renter’s market will go in line with what the working poor can afford (not less or more). So, if minimum wage go up a buck an hour, I would expect that rents will reflect that and generally go up $100 a month or so. I’ve never heard this discussed when politicians talk on raising minimum wages and I don’t know of any research supporting it - it’s just a personal theory.

 

[Used2beSherryG]

An intact family is the best predictor of wealth. In addition, the income gap will widen as those on assistance flatline, while those working goes up.

This is the verifiable truth, although largely ignored by secular press as it is not sensational enough. Intact families with a mother and a father tend to produce children who get a complete education and hold traditional values including a good work ethic.

 

[TEPO]

I think some ethnicities are more prone to maintaining family oriented lifestyles than others. Which effects income.

 

[DeniseNY]

This is the verifiable truth, although largely ignored by secular press as it is not sensational enough. Intact families with a mother and a father tend to produce children who get a complete education and hold traditional values including a good work ethic.

news.yahoo.com/larry-elder-gop-stop-talking-blacks-children-042405381.html

Elder argues that the greatest threat to the black community is not racism, but the scourge of absentee fathers.

“To avoid poverty, UCLA public policy profession James Q. Wilson said that everyone — not just blacks — must do three things: finish high school, don’t become a parent until at least the age of twenty, and get married before having a child. Do this and you will not be poor,

 

[stinkcat_14]

This is the verifiable truth, although largely ignored by secular press as it is not sensational enough. Intact families with a mother and a father tend to produce children who get a complete education and hold traditional values including a good work ethic.

Also, it helps to have a smaller number of children. The fewer children you have the wealthier your offspring tend to be.

 

[bisco1]

and yet, doing this purposefully is sinful.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Also, it helps to have a smaller number of children. The fewer children you have the wealthier your offspring tend to be.

Statistically, I don’t much doubt this is true. But I don’t know that there’s a cause/effect relationship other than a temporary one.

If mom and dad die and leave their estate to one or two children, then obviously their children inherit more than if they had ten children. It’s possible as well that the two children would have gone to Yale while the ten would have gone to Missouri Southern, with the former having some advantage because of it.

But one suspects that the statistics actually may tell us only that the seven children of a “welfare mother”, raised in some ghetto brings down the averages of the much more rare Mormon rancher who has seven children, all of whom go to BYU and do better than the Yale two abovementioned because perhaps their work ethic is stronger. After a lifetime, the “Mormon seven” might be a lot better off than the “Yale two”, but it would be masked statistically if the seven children of the “ghetto mom” are desperately poor.

It would be interesting to know how many upper middle class people have more than two children versus people at the bottom of the economic scale who do? My guess is not many.

 

[bisco1]

i think more people have been having 3-4 children in the past 20-30 years.

 

[sallybutler]

I think some ethnicities are more prone to maintaining family oriented lifestyles than others. Which effects income.

I don’t think it is an ethnicity issue so much as a socio-economic issue.

 

[stinkcat_14]

Statistically, I don’t much doubt this is true. But I don’t know that there’s a cause/effect relationship other than a temporary one.

If mom and dad die and leave their estate to one or two children, then obviously their children inherit more than if they had ten children. It’s possible as well that the two children would have gone to Yale while the ten would have gone to Missouri Southern, with the former having some advantage because of it.

But one suspects that the statistics actually may tell us only that the seven children of a “welfare mother”, raised in some ghetto brings down the averages of the much more rare Mormon rancher who has seven children, all of whom go to BYU and do better than the Yale two abovementioned because perhaps their work ethic is stronger. After a lifetime, the “Mormon seven” might be a lot better off than the “Yale two”, but it would be masked statistically if the seven children of the “ghetto mom” are desperately poor.

It would be interesting to know how many upper middle class people have more than two children versus people at the bottom of the economic scale who do? My guess is not many.

What the statistics tell us, is that holding everything else equal, an intact family with one child is likely to have more wealth than one with four children. The single mother of seven has two things going against her for wealth building. On the other hand, while the statistics can identify trends, there is still a huge amount of variability in the data. I know a woman who is from a single parent household and who dropped out of high school who is a millionaire. I also know people from upper middle class intact families with elite educations who are bums.

As to the number of children, the last data I saw showed that number of kids increased with the father’s income and decreased with the mother’s income.

 

[Ridgerunner]

What the statistics tell us, is that holding everything else equal, an intact family with one child is likely to have more wealth than one with four children. The single mother of seven has two things going against her for wealth building. On the other hand, while the statistics can identify trends, there is still a huge amount of variability in the data. I know a woman who is from a single parent household and who dropped out of high school who is a millionaire. I also know people from upper middle class intact families with elite educations who are bums.

As to the number of children, the last data I saw showed that number of kids increased with the father’s income and decreased with the mother’s income.

Please further explain your last sentence. Did the number of children go up when the mother’s income went up or did it go down as the mother’s income went up?

 

[stinkcat_14]

Please further explain your last sentence. Did the number of children go up when the mother’s income went up or did it go down as the mother’s income went up?

Sorry I wasn’t clear. The number of children went down as the mother’s income went up.

 

[Ridgerunner]

Sorry I wasn’t clear. The number of children went down as the mother’s income went up.

Interesting, and perhaps not surprising. I recall reading, for instance, the opinion of one commentator who attributed low birth rates in some European countries to the fact that women in those places very seriously followed careers.

So, one might be inclined to conclude that, among middle and upper middle class families the families with the greatest likelihood of having more than two children would be one in which the father is a relatively high earner and the mother is perhaps a stay at home mom.

Of course, “high earner” is a relative thing. I remember, when I was growing up, that the area in St. Louis in which some of my cousins lived, was “high earner”. Those same subdivisions are now “low earner”. I don’t know that tastes in housing quite explain that. I suspect that the concept of “high earner” was applied to a lot more people then than now.

 

[stinkcat_14]

Interesting, and perhaps not surprising. I recall reading, for instance, the opinion of one commentator who attributed low birth rates in some European countries to the fact that women in those places very seriously followed careers.

So, one might be inclined to conclude that, among middle and upper middle class families the families with the greatest likelihood of having more than two children would be one in which the father is a relatively high earner and the mother is perhaps a stay at home mom.

Of course, “high earner” is a relative thing. I remember, when I was growing up, that the area in St. Louis in which some of my cousins lived, was “high earner”. Those same subdivisions are now “low earner”. I don’t know that tastes in housing quite explain that. I suspect that the concept of “high earner” was applied to a lot more people then than now.

Part of the reason for neighborhood change is the filtering process. Forty years ago, a 2500 square foot house was considered huge, now upper income households want 3500 square feet as what is considered a big house. Those houses aren’t in the old neighborhoods, so the bigger houses are built in areas with abundant land (and yet still having accessibility to job locations).

 

[bisco1]

and in the old neighborhoods, they tear down $600,000. houses and build mcmansions.

 

[stinkcat_14]

and in the old neighborhoods, they tear down $600,000. houses and build mcmansions.

It depends on the neighborhood.

 

[ringil]

Part of the reason for neighborhood change is the filtering process. Forty years ago, a 2500 square foot house was considered huge, now upper income households want 3500 square feet as what is considered a big house. Those houses aren’t in the old neighborhoods, so the bigger houses are built in areas with abundant land (and yet still having accessibility to job locations).

Yes, the McMansions.

 

[manualman]

This maybe a repeat (skipped several pages), but this statistic is worthless because the outliers are SO VAST that they skew the means.

If you removed to wealthiest 1,000 people in America and re-ran the numbers, I bet that the disparity would be decimated. THAT is just how much money Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and 998 others hold of America’s total wealth. Yeah THOSE guys are almost all white guys. Big deal, that says nothing at all about what the average white guy’s life is like.

The top 0.01% of Americans now personally own about 11% of the total wealth in this country. reference: economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/the-wealth-gap-is-growing-too/?_r=0

And we were told in school that feudalism was ancient history. Not so much.

 

[bisco1]

sure, there are plenty of poor white people. we need justice for all, not just one group or another. programs should be aimed at education and jobs for everybody.

 

[stinkcat_14]

This maybe a repeat (skipped several pages), but this statistic is worthless because the outliers are SO VAST that they skew the means.

If you removed to wealthiest 1,000 people in America and re-ran the numbers, I bet that the disparity would be decimated. THAT is just how much money Bill Gates, Warren Buffet and 998 others hold of America’s total wealth. Yeah THOSE guys are almost all white guys. Big deal, that says nothing at all about what the average white guy’s life is like.

The top 0.01% of Americans now personally own about 11% of the total wealth in this country. reference: economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/04/02/the-wealth-gap-is-growing-too/?_r=0

And we were told in school that feudalism was ancient history. Not so much.

The study actually compares median income which is a better measure of the typical household’s wealth and less susceptible to extreme values. If they compare means you would be correct.