When will we have a Basic Minimum Income?

[mspohr]

does a poor kid in costa rica have the same levels of opportunities as would a poor kid in the US? I think not. there might be inequities in wealth but usually that is caused by unequal levels of effort.

A poor kid in CR has health care and better educational opportunities than the US. A poor kid in the US can only aspire to work in a fast food joint if he's lucky.

 

[MikeQ]

There is decades worth of data proving that hard work alone is not sufficient for everyone to succeed. This is an extensively studied subject, and government policy played(plays) a large role in who succeeds and who benefits from the economy. For just one example, government policies such as "redlining" determined who (based on race) was able to get home-loans, and in which areas, and at what rates. Those who got home loans were able to pass that wealth to their children, and borrow against their equity to start businesses, send their children to college, etc. Home loan policies also effected education, because education is funded by local property tax -- the ability to borrow money and build homes, or renovate them increased home value and therefore increased school funding, so children had better outcomes. No amount of hard work or credit-worthiness would let certain people benefit in that way. Success was based on factors outside of their control, and the effects of policies like redlining abandoned decades ago are still skewing results.

Racial discrimination aside (which I agree is a real thing), there are many whites in this country who are poor and don't take advantage of the opportunities the U.S. has to offer. I work in an industry where we import 100,000 workers a year from India and China because rich white kids would rather get an Art/History degree instead of a STEM degree. Then they complain about financial equality when they can't find a job that pays $200k with an Art/History degree.

 

[MikeQ]

But we often give ourselves too much credit when it's hard.

Hmmm, which is worse? My independents has served me quite well. I'd rather live in a world where I can have what I'm willing to work for as opposed to one where I'm only allowed to have what someone else is willing to give me.

 

[ohmman]

Hmmm, which is worse? My independents has served me quite well. I'd rather live in a world where I can have what I'm willing to work for as opposed to one where I'm only allowed to have what someone else is willing to give me.

I’m quite certain there are more than these two options.

 

[MikeQ]

A poor kid in CR has health care and better educational opportunities than the US. A poor kid in the US can only aspire to work in a fast food joint if he's lucky.

A quick googling will find you many articles written by Tico's that portray a much different story.

Costa Rica's Core Problem - The Education System | The Costa Rican Times

It sounds eerily similar to what my wife sees. Parents who don't care about their kids education and kids who don't care about their education (as learned from their parents). No desire to improve their situation or work harder.

 

[mspohr]

For all of the judgemental people posting about the decline of the family and how they overcame adversity because they had parents who supported them and they worked hard, here's a bit of the reality of the issues facing people in the real world trying to get by:
Can you afford to get married? In the US, it's increasingly the privilege of the rich

The problem here is that people can't afford to get married because they can't get jobs to support a family.
"Marriage has become a mark of status, increasingly the preserve of the wealthy and educated. Today, 26% of poor, 39% of working-class, and 56% of middle- and upper-class adults aged 18 to 55 are married, according to research by Opportunity America and the American Enterprise Institute. This compares with 51%, 57% and 65% respectively in 1990."

This is a sign of further decline in the social fabric of the US due to lack of economic opportunities. A universal basic income would help provide some financial stability to help shore up our crumbling society. Unrestrained capitalist greed is destroying us.

 

[MikeQ]

I’m quite certain there are more than these two options.

Not in today's political system.

For all of the judgemental people posting about the decline of the family and how they overcame adversity because they had parents who supported them and they worked hard, here's a bit of the reality of the issues facing people in the real world trying to get by:

I had anything but supportive parents. One of the primary reasons I joined the Army was to get away from an abusive home.

The problem here is that people can't afford to get married because they can't get jobs to support a family.
"Marriage has become a mark of status, increasingly the preserve of the wealthy and educated. Today, 26% of poor, 39% of working-class, and 56% of middle- and upper-class adults aged 18 to 55 are married, according to research by Opportunity America and the American Enterprise Institute. This compares with 51%, 57% and 65% respectively in 1990."

Since when does getting married mean you have to buy a house and support a family? My wife and I were married when we were poor. We put ourselves through college. We were married for 12 years before we had our first child. We were married for 7 years before we bought our first house. Our first house was not much to be proud of but it was a starting point. I notice the younger people today aren't willing to make small steps toward something better. If they can't afford their little mansion, they won't even buy a house. I guess it's the instant gratification generation.

I see this article as a positive sign though. People are being responsible. People who are getting married and having children when they have no money are a far worse problem than people waiting until they have money. Doesn't seem like a bad thing at all.

Also this article doesn't even make sense. They guy they use for an example has a girlfriend and a child. So what's keeping him from getting a piece of paper? BTW, my wife and I had no wedding. We were married by a family friend who was a notary. We had a small ceremony with some people but it cost us nothing. It was a gathering of friends. We couldn't see spending $10-$20k on a one day event when that money could go towards a house that would last us much longer.

Perhaps people are just too entitled these days? if they can't afford a $20k wedding then they can't get married?

I also think there's something more at work here. I see a lot of the younger people at my company not even interested in getting into a relationship. These are high paid people so money isn't the issue. I see them buying houses, cars, etc... but not getting married or even dating. They also seem to be workaholics and their career seems to be their only focus.

 

[ohmman]

If you are interested in actual work being done on the topic of marriage retreat (versus anecdotes), this is an interesting recent episode of Freakonomics that highlights work done around the fracking boom.

The Fracking Boom, a Baby Boom, and the Retreat From Marriage - Freakonomics

 

[MikeQ]

If you are interested in actual work being done on the topic of marriage retreat (versus anecdotes), this is an interesting recent episode of Freakonomics that highlights work done around the fracking boom.

The Fracking Boom, a Baby Boom, and the Retreat From Marriage - Freakonomics

So liberal social ideology as it pertains to sex is to blame?

 

[mspohr]

Not in today's political system.


I had anything but supportive parents. One of the primary reasons I joined the Army was to get away from an abusive home.



Since when does getting married mean you have to buy a house and support a family? My wife and I were married when we were poor. We put ourselves through college. We were married for 12 years before we had our first child. We were married for 7 years before we bought our first house. Our first house was not much to be proud of but it was a starting point. I notice the younger people today aren't willing to make small steps toward something better. If they can't afford their little mansion, they won't even buy a house. I guess it's the instant gratification generation.

I see this article as a positive sign though. People are being responsible. People who are getting married and having children when they have no money are a far worse problem than people waiting until they have money. Doesn't seem like a bad thing at all.

Also this article doesn't even make sense. They guy they use for an example has a girlfriend and a child. So what's keeping him from getting a piece of paper? BTW, my wife and I had no wedding. We were married by a family friend who was a notary. We had a small ceremony with some people but it cost us nothing. It was a gathering of friends. We couldn't see spending $10-$20k on a one day event when that money could go towards a house that would last us much longer.

Perhaps people are just too entitled these days? if they can't afford a $20k wedding then they can't get married?

I also think there's something more at work here. I see a lot of the younger people at my company not even interested in getting into a relationship. These are high paid people so money isn't the issue. I see them buying houses, cars, etc... but not getting married or even dating. They also seem to be workaholics and their career seems to be their only focus.

I'm sorry about your abusive home but your experience is irrelevant except as a data point in broader trends towards the breakdown of society.
I think you missed the point of the article. It wasn't about the cost of the wedding. It's about the cost of raising a family. People can't get good jobs and can't support a family so they don't feel they can make the commitment... because it is a commitment to house, feed and educate a family. Poor people don't have the resources to provide stable housing, food, education, etc. so they don't get married. Of course this leads the clueless rich folks to point fingers at "those people" when they should realize that this is a more complex social problem of access to resources. Poor people are poor because they didn't have access to a stable home, education, proper nutrition and health care and job opportunities. A universal basic income would help.

 

[ohmman]

So liberal social ideology as it pertains to sex is to blame?

Based on the results of this work, it's possible. I will say that labeling it as liberal social ideology when it's obviously embraced in the Montana fracking (non-liberal) culture is a bit of a push. But either way, I found it an interesting piece.

One thing I'd like to see with the research is getting to the root of why precisely marriage results in better outcomes for children. We know that it has historically, and they present some reasonable hypotheses around it (mainly stability), but they don't present any hard science.

 

[MikeQ]

Based on the results of this work, it's possible. I will say that labeling it as liberal social ideology when it's obviously embraced in the Montana fracking (non-liberal) culture is a bit of a push. But either way, I found it an interesting piece.

One thing I'd like to see with the research is getting to the root of why precisely marriage results in better outcomes for children. We know that it has historically, and they present some reasonable hypotheses around it (mainly stability), but they don't present any hard science.

Montana wasn't in the study. None of the norther states were. They chose states where the fracking boom employed local residents. Montana and the Dakotas brought in a lot of migrant workers. The states in the study were Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia, Ohio. (Still all conservative states with exception of Virginia).

I think society as a whole has shifted toward a liberal ideology when it comes to sex and marriage. The simple question though is why are these mother's having children. You can have sex without children and birth control is very accessible and cheap these days.

My wife and I made a conscious decision to wait. It was for the obvious financial implications. Why can't 40% of mothers today make the same decision?

Honestly I think it's pretty simple. Women are too free with sex and men have zero incentive to get married. There is literally nothing but bad consequences for the man. The consequences of divorce open men up to potentially paying alimony for the rest of their life. If women are willing to engage in sex and childbearing outside of marriage, there's nothing the man gains by being married.

 

[mspohr]

So liberal social ideology as it pertains to sex is to blame?

Reality has a noted liberal bias.
I thought "family values" were a conservative ideology. I don't think you can blame liberals. This is an economic problem created by unrestrained capitalism.

 

[ohmman]

Montana wasn't in the study. None of the norther states were. They chose states where the fracking boom employed local residents. Montana and the Dakotas brought in a lot of migrant workers. The states in the study were Pennsylvania, Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia, Ohio. (Still all conservative states with exception of Virginia).

Thanks for this. I’d listened to that on release and had forgotten the specifics.

I’ll leave the rest of your post alone.

 

[MikeQ]

Reality has a noted liberal bias.
I thought "family values" were a conservative ideology. I don't think you can blame liberals. This is an economic problem created by unrestrained capitalism.

If you read the article you'd see that 40% of children born today are born to unwed mothers. It's the destruction of family values (liberal ideology) that have caused this. Probably the welfare system is to blame as well. It encourages mothers to have children out of wedlock in order to avoid a couples combined income reducing or eliminating welfare benefits. Se what paying people to do nothing has accomplished?

Also if you'd read the article, you'd see that the outcome completely negates your hypothesis. Even when high income jobs were available (due to fracking), women didn't marry and continued to have children out of wedlock. The article clearly showed that it WASN'T an economic problem.

 

[mspohr]

If you read the article you'd see that 40% of children born today are born to unwed mothers. It's the destruction of family values (liberal ideology) that have caused this. Probably the welfare system is to blame as well. It encourages mothers to have children out of wedlock in order to avoid a couples combined income reducing or eliminating welfare benefits. Se what paying people to do nothing has accomplished?

Also if you'd read the article, you'd see that the outcome completely negates your hypothesis. Even when high income jobs were available (due to fracking), women didn't marry and continued to have children out of wedlock. The article clearly showed that it WASN'T an economic problem.

I doubt that ideology causes people to make economic decisions.

 

[ohmman]

We have been slowly migrating off of the topic. As I mentioned before, we need to avoid turning this into a politics thread.

 

[bhzmark]

you'd see that 40% of children born today are born to unwed mothers. It's the destruction of family values (liberal ideology) that have caused this. Probably the welfare system is to blame as well. I

Maybe, but why is that (children born to unwed mothers) itself a bad thing? -- when you control for household wealth and other confounding factors. That is, single parent (almost always single mother) households are usually poorer that dual parent household because dual parent households have either dual incomes, or less child care cost burden than single parent households.

Any real evidence that single mother children are worse off when control for other factors?

Here is some showing that they are not.

Obama, Phelps: Single-Mom Sons Succeed

"According to the most recent data for 2007 from the U.S. Census, 8.4 million boys under 18 were living with a single mother. That's 22 percent of all boys in that age group in the USA.

"Lamb says children do better if they have a good relationship with the in-home parent, as well as if the parents have low conflict; if the parent has economic resources; and if children have individual resilience to adverse circumstances.

"What's important is not whether they are raised by one or two parents. It's how good is the relationship with the parent, how much support they're getting from that parent and how harmonious is the environment.

"In the case of Obama, his mother was not particularly well off, though she was well-resourced intellectually and had been to college and had supportive parents," Lamb says.

"Michael Kimmel, a sociologist and gender studies expert at Stony Brook University in New York, says the resident parent has a huge effect.

"We see constantly children of single-parent families who thrive because the parents are so devoted because they're compensating for the absence of the other parent," he says.

"But Biblarz says the idea "that boys in particular need fathers in the way girls need mothers" doesn't hold true.

"I can tell you there's almost no evidence supporting that," he says."
​

To take it back on topic: A universal income will take out the confounding factor of household wealth for single parent households. To extent single parent households have worse outcomes due to economics (And that is likely the main reason) UBI will address that. And universal better education will address the other most likely causal factor.

 

[bkp_duke]

It discussed the myth. It didn't provide any data. It basically shows that the financial inequality is growing. That's not a surprise since people aren't going after the high paying jobs. We're importing people who will. Nothing in that report showed me that people who try hard can't get ahead. In fact it says the opposite to me. With the high inequality, working hard and climbing the ladder will have a inordinately high level of compensation.

Our biggest falling in this country is with our parents who have not prepared their children for the real world. My wife sees it every day as a teacher. Parents complain if their child is stressed about school. They ask for special favors because they don't like to see their child upset over school work. It's utterly depressing how bad parenting is today. My wife literally had a parent that went to the principal to try to reduce the amount of homework my wife gave because doing homework didn't fit in with their busy sports schedule.

So what factors contributed to your success that didn't come from you? I mean I can't think of anything that wasn't a result of my decision making that led to my success. I've never been handed anything...at least not anything that wasn't available to anyone else.

BINGO! It all goes back to upbringing. My parents weren't handed things, they came from nothing and did alright (middle of the road middle class, from poor families). They worked hard, and instilled the work ethic in their children. Emigrants for centuries have understood this. How is this such a foreign concept now to the liberal "elite"? Why do they now just want to HAND things to people and require no work be done?

Families that expect things to be handed to them, that "life must be fair, or I'm just going to sit it out" have no clue that life simply isn't fair by design. Sure, it's LESS far to some than others, but you take the hand you are dealt, and you do the best with it. You don't just fold the cards down on the table because you don't like you got dealt a less than ideal hand.

School is a GIFT that we should press our children to take every advantage of, one that too many kids don't take full advantage of for various reasons (poor school district, poor or disinterested teachers that won't leave their job because of tenure, parents that care more about sports than education, etc. etc.)

 

[bkp_duke]

Any real evidence that single mother children are worse off when control for other factors?

Simple question: do you have kids?

At times it is all my wife and I can do, combined as a team, to keep up with the problems of one kid, much less both of them. I would suspect MANY parents would echo this sentiment at one time or another, and that the answer to your question is "self evident" and not require a Ph.D. to work out.