A well-researched piece from The Economist's print edition (it's available online) that tries to pose fundamental questions on America's attitude to its poor. Lots of gems in here, including two charts that I've lifted from the article:
"A child from a family in America’s bottom quintile of earners is markedly less likely than a child born into the top quintile to be ready for school at five. He is less likely to graduate from high school with decent grades; he is more likely while still of school age to become a parent or be convicted of a crime. Degrees and high earnings are even less probable."
And this is what's scary about the crisis-induced unemployment rate:
"As well as declines in wages, the crisis brought a sharp reduction in the proportion of the population of working age in the workforce. In the early 2000s the proportion was between 62% and 63%. By 2010 it was below 59%. The longer someone is out of work the harder it becomes to get back in, which could turn the temporary macroeconomic problem of high unemployment in the slump into a structural shift towards poverty."
This reminds me of an article I read today on how economists got income inequality wrong despite all the attention it had garnered in recent years. But that's wrong. There's a lot of work still being done and more importantly, income inequality isn't an economic problem without being a social one that draws us back to moral roots at times. That's why it's hard to consider it a problem to be straightforwardly solved.
"A child from a family in America’s bottom quintile of earners is markedly less likely than a child born into the top quintile to be ready for school at five. He is less likely to graduate from high school with decent grades; he is more likely while still of school age to become a parent or be convicted of a crime. Degrees and high earnings are even less probable."
And this is what's scary about the crisis-induced unemployment rate:
"As well as declines in wages, the crisis brought a sharp reduction in the proportion of the population of working age in the workforce. In the early 2000s the proportion was between 62% and 63%. By 2010 it was below 59%. The longer someone is out of work the harder it becomes to get back in, which could turn the temporary macroeconomic problem of high unemployment in the slump into a structural shift towards poverty."
This reminds me of an article I read today on how economists got income inequality wrong despite all the attention it had garnered in recent years. But that's wrong. There's a lot of work still being done and more importantly, income inequality isn't an economic problem without being a social one that draws us back to moral roots at times. That's why it's hard to consider it a problem to be straightforwardly solved.
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