What Really Keeps Poor People Poor

http://jonbischke.com/2011/05/26/what-really-keeps-poor-people-poor/

by jonbischke • 15 years ago

164 144 15 years ago

daimyoyo• 15 years ago

There are a few reasons that poor people remain poor.

Math: The fact is that it's much more difficult to make $10,000 from nothing than it is to make $1M when you have $1B to use.

Experience: When you're poor, the odds are very good that you don't know anyone who is successful(let alone "rich") so there isn't the chance to find out what it takes to be successful. Plus, when you have no experience you need to work your way up from nothing. If you come from a rich family, odds are you know people who are willing to take a chance on you based on the references you have.

Mindset: I came from a very poor family. I always assumed that I would start work at some horrible entry level job, and work my way up. That's what everyone in my family had done. It never occurred to me that there was another way until my mid 20's. Now I'm approaching 30 and I feel like I'm finally on my way to working for myself.

jeffool• 15 years ago

I'm with you. I'm now 30 and in debt from trying to "do things they way they're done," which is what I was taught. I actually think that's probably the larger reason (though certainly raw resources like money don't hurt.)

etaty• 15 years ago

Poor people need to work for tomorrow. No failure accepted. Rich people invest in their future. Failure is ok.

afterburner8• 15 years ago

Yes. The poor can accept no risk, and can't even leverage on a safe bet. The rich can do both, multiple times.

hessenwolf2• 15 years ago

Gentleman, when I first started Reynholm Industries, I had just two things in my possession: a dream...

and 6 million pounds. Today, I have a business empire, the like of which... the world has never seen the like of which. Hope it doesn't sound arrogant when I say... that I am the greatest man in the world!

evangineer2• 15 years ago

Economist Samuel Bowles and his colleagues have found the single most important determinant of economic success in America is "one's choice of parents".

I blogged about Bowles & his work here: http://londoncreativelabs.com/blog/2010/3/28/insights-into-e...

ekanes• 15 years ago

Actually you can make $10,000 from nothing weeding or mowing. Of course, you have to be willing to do hard things like get rejected door to door, but it's extremely possible.

krschultz4• 15 years ago

If 'nothing' == 'buying a lawn mower, a truck, a trailer, and a weed wacker' then you'd be correct. Although I'm not sure which part of the the Bronx you think I should setup my mowing business in because the last time I checked, there isn't any grass.

iamelgringo2• 15 years ago

Actually you can make $10,000 from nothing weeding or mowing

Not if you live in the inner city, and there aren't any lawns to mow, or gardens to weed.

McDonald's just had 1 Million job applications for 62,000 jobs.

RK• 15 years ago

at the top places, two-thirds of the students come from the top quartile and only 5 percent come from the bottom quartile

Whenever I see a statistic like that, the first question I want answered is: what is the trend over time? Maybe this is actually a big change with only 1% coming from the bottom quartile 10 years ago, indicating the future situation, etc.

drats• 15 years ago

The long term trend is quite extraordinary with regard to the total number going into higher ed (which form networks too, although not the same as the elite institutions).

"Two percent of Americans aged 18 to 24 were enrolled in a university at the beginning of the 20th century. At nearly the end of the 20th century, beyond 60 percent, or 14 million students, were enrolled in 3500 four year or two year colleges."

http://ajha.org/early-history-of-universities-in-america.htm

Joakal2• 15 years ago

Many factors in poor staying poor.

The High Cost of Poverty: Why the Poor Pay More: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05...

Poor people spend 9% of income on lottery tickets; here's why: http://www.walletpop.com/blog/2010/05/31/poor-people-spend-9...

Missing poverty's new reality: There's a lot less of it: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01...

yummyfajitas2• 15 years ago

Your first link is full of fail.

You [a hypothetical poor person] don't have a car to get to a supermarket...

70% of the poor own a car, 25% own two cars.

When you are poor, you don't have the luxury of throwing a load into the washing machine...

64% of the poor do have that luxury.

http://www.census.gov/prod/2008pubs/h150-07.pdf

It only gets worse from that point on. The poor can't get free supermarket discount cards?

Joakal2• 15 years ago

Interesting data! Thanks for your input, For lack of a better opinion, I've been focusing on improving this stuff because of the relative ease.

mfringel• 15 years ago

_70% of the poor own a car, 25% own two cars._

Those particular numbers don't tell the whole story.

There are many ways to "not have a car", including "the car has broken down and they don't have the $300 to get it fixed, just like what happened last month because the car is fundamentally unreliable after owning it for 15 years (or getting a 10-year-old used one because they had a windfall one month, five years ago) but they can't amass enough cash to get another one, because they're living hand-to-mouth."

sethg• 15 years ago

I’m not going to look for an answer right now in that 642-page book, but I suspect that a significant fraction of poor people live in suburban or rural areas, where owning a car is an absolute necessity for holding a job, and owning two cars would be damn near a necessity in families where both parents work outside the house.

dgreensp• 15 years ago

He stretches the point a bit far. When he's talking about "isolation" broadly, I can maybe see the point -- lack of role models, mentors, references, people to help get your foot in the door at your first job. (I have no idea if this is "what really keeps poor people poor.")

Then he uses "network" to mean what you get at Harvard or Yale, and suggests that this is a gating factor, that masses of people have everything they need to rise out of the bottom quartile, if only we could give them a letter of admission to Harvard. This seems odd.

entangld3• 15 years ago

I don't think it's that much of a stretch. When you're poor and you're around other poor people there is no one there to recognize your potential and bring you into the fold (job, connections, inform you of opportunities available). You're just a clever person other poor people know.

There's a big difference between knowing small business owners in the neighborhood and knowing friends of wealthy and or well connected people. When you're poor you are isolated. You have to do everything from scratch and it takes a LONG time to figure out by yourself, what generations of people have already figured out.

The Harvard example could easily be a proxy for other institutions frequented by the elite.

chernevik2• 15 years ago

Networks expand returns on ability. They allow people to find better places for their skills, better access to employees and capital and expertise. But they do very little for people who lack ability in the first place. An "in" with a hedge fund or VC or a big law firm won't get anyone anywhere without the ability to deliver the goods. Networks work by filtering. That country club golf partner doesn't think to mention his buddy in your field if he doesn't think that buddy will find you impressive. And if he did, his buddy wouldn't be very interested in his introductions.

zamfi• 15 years ago

The Gladwell piece actually does a better job illustrating the point, I think.

Gladwell effectively claims that success in life is due in part to finding the right opportunities at the right time, and the networks you get at Harvard and Yale (and many other potential places, Gladwell doesn't focus on universities the way this post does) provide you with a mechanism for finding those opportunities. And this is "opportunities" in the broadest sense.

I'd believe that if you and everyone you know works low-paying service jobs, that it's then going to be harder to discover opportunities for pursuing passions and career advancement.

charlesju• 15 years ago

This whole line of arguments is very strange to me.

I think it would be nice to have high expectations for our highest colleges to admit a large amount from the lowest quartile of society, but this is not the natural next step in the process of solving poverty. The next step is how do we get more of those individuals to graduate from high school, go to vocational schools, etc. This is just another example of the intellectual elite trying to overlay their standards on problems, resulting in impractical policies and priorities, that do nothing to solve underlying problems.

aantix• 15 years ago

This article has me reminiscing about the recent Linked-In IPO; I remember reading that the IPO was offered to favorable clients of the brokerage underwriting the IPO.

I don't know how many "favorable" offerings are presented each year or what their performances are, but if the IPO is purposelessly undervalued to make their clients richer, how does one compete with that? I doubt a $100 or 10k account would draw enough interest to gain access to these "Favorable" offerings.

pavlov2• 15 years ago

These favored clients are huge customers like funds. They pay the brokerage millions of dollars just in transaction fees every year.

In this context, an undervalued IPO every once in a while is more like a perk to a valued customer -- it's the equivalent of the bouquet of flowers or bottle of wine a company might send to a regular Joe.

anamax• 15 years ago

> In this context, an undervalued IPO every once in a while is more like a perk to a valued customer -- it's the equivalent of the bouquet of flowers or bottle of wine a company might send to a regular Joe.

Yes, but that perk is paid for by LinkedIn.

bane5• 15 years ago

A similar example. Suppose you wanted to be an investor in a private company. In many localities you actually can't invest unless you have a certain level of net worth (something I've personally had to deal with at various levels of frustration until I just decided to found my own company).

Everybody says the way to become wealthy is to let money make money for you, but you can find yourself locked out of most of the opportunities where that might happen at a growth percentage to be interesting simply because you don't start with enough money to get in the game.

Dove2• 15 years ago

Everybody says the way to become wealthy is to let money make money for you

I don't think so. I guess it depends on what you mean by "wealthy", but I'd say that's the way to go from "rich" to "super rich".

The way to become wealthy is to spend less than you earn. A lot less. When you have savings on the order of several years' worth of income, then a healthy return is real money. Until then, your budget matters a lot more.

mcdaid• 15 years ago

The latest attempt in the UK to deal with the problem

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/8540055/Schools-win-rig...

hugh33• 15 years ago

I read as much of the title as is in the truncated URL and really hoped it would be "Schools win right to use corporal punishment".

izendejas2• 15 years ago

I come from an officially poor background, but it wasn't until I started learning about my girlfriend's family back in her native, third-world country that I really got a sense for what third-world poverty is:

- Constant verbal, physical, sometimes sexual abuse--the stuff that really traumatizes people into doing these same things across generations. This isn't the stuff you learn about in the news because, sadly, to many people living in those conditions, it's part of life. - Simply not have any positive role models at all to look up to. Their role-models are their parents, or their neighbors who have basically grown accustomed to living in poverty and can offer no guidance.

And I can go on and on.

My girlfriend and I have simply concluded: "some of these people don't know any better." If they had better role-models, they'd have a better shot.

So it is about the network in a way, but the author doesn't go enough to explain why. I'd like to give it a shot based on my observations: the network effect matters. Escaping one network to join a knowledgeable and competitive one exposes you to different ways of thinking, makes you question preconceived notions you have, makes you realize just how badly things really were, etc. I'm sure others here can relate even more, but coming from a modest background, it has been truly eye opening to be in the bay area, for example. There are so many talented, ambitious young people that inspire you every day to push your selves to the limits, that question your abilities, etc. Most people, I must say are unfortunate to not even know what YC is, entrepreneurship is all about, etc.

So for anyone who doesn't really understand poverty (I myself, included), I really recommend you visit a third-world country and actually live amidst them. Find a friend who comes from such a background and go stay with his/her family and him/her. You'll realize just how fortunate you are. By all means, don't feel bad about this, just gain some conscious about the fact that there are less fortunate people out there and begin to question what you can do with your companies, at your job to educate these people.

To finish, for anyone that questions a university's worth... remember this, an education isn't just the material you learn during lectures or books, it's what you learn about others and from others that really , also. And this latter component, I think is the secret to reducing poverty: simple exposure to new ways of life.

hessenwolf2• 15 years ago

The graph is disjoint. I remember when I was in school and teachers were asking me what I wanted to do in college, and I had known not one single professional individual ever, other than teachers, with a teacher/pupil ratio of 33/1. How was I supposed to know?

The problem with being poor is that everybody else you know is poor and also doesn't have an iota how to get out of it.

wisty• 15 years ago

They know. At least, they have a rough idea. Of course, it wouldn't be much help to have your mother say "learn to read" if she can't help teach you. The other problem (which will be well-known by many hn-ers) is that trying to get out of is discouraged.

Would you make friends with a guy who wants to study in another zip code, or a guy who wants to stay in the 'hood? If you think you are going to stay in the 'hood, then you are best hanging out with a fellow drop-out.

That's the economic explanation for the jealousy and sometimes hostility that social climbers get.

Whether or not the economic explanation is correct, it's hard to argue that a black kid in a black school who acts white may get beat up for it.

geon• 15 years ago

I have a slightly related experience. My wife is from Sri Lanka, and while she haven't herself lived in poverty, I recognize the social structure keeping it in place.

As a trivial example, in Sri Lankan culture, you don't say "thank you", "you're welcome" or give anycompliments. Instead, it is common to tell someone they look fat when you see them after a long time.

Interestingly, the Internet is changing this. My wife has a lot of her school friends in her Facebook, and people are starting to complement each other on the uploaded photos. I believe this is a result of internationalization (many Sri Lankans have moved to Australia, Italy and France) and the percieved freedom when not having to talk face-to-face.

stonemetal• 15 years ago

I am not sure what you mean by your example. Telling someone they look fat when you haven't seen them for a while is a kin to saying you have done well for yourself and would be a complement. Mostly it just sounds like a difference in culture that changes when the culture around you changes.

evangineer2• 15 years ago

The network is important in part because of the dominant cultural norms it has. Those norms will be anti-economic for the poor. Moving into a network where you become immersed in pro-economic cultural norms can make all the difference.

Also the pro-economic network will create & broker economic opportunities, whether they be internships, jobs, startup co-founding, access to investment etc.

The work of Samuel Bowles & Herbert Gintis touch on this.

chipsy• 15 years ago

This is my experience(not coming from a poor family, but from closely knowing poor friends at various times) as well. Even if you mean the best for yourself, after growing up in an impoverished environment, you get trapped in a prison of your own creation - low self-esteem, violent rebellion, drug or sexual abuse - that leads you straight into poverty again.

izendejas2• 15 years ago

Too late, but I'm too self-conscious not to apologize for not proofreading. By the time I noticed the mistakes, I was caught in HN's anti-procrastination mode.

motters• 15 years ago

I think these things were identified several decades ago by sociologists. Namely that poverty isn't so much about money or level of education, as popularly supposed, but is primarily about "social exclusion", where there are few or no opportunities for someone of modest upbringing to break into other kinds of social circle.

My grandparents generation had a very acute understanding of social class, and it played a central role in their lives in a variety of ways. I think the kinds of issues which they faced are now returning.

mkr-hn2• 15 years ago

Networking doesn't happen exclusively among people who overestimate their importance. Just about any kind of volunteering can lead you to something worthwhile. If one wants to get into an "elite" circle, they can get into a political campaign as a volunteer for a good start.

dolvlo• 15 years ago

I think the person who wrote this article should read about the history of imperialism and colonization of the non-white world. The quote: "...doing what we can to teach kids from impoverished backgrounds not just how to read and write but how to become upwardly mobile in their networking" really demonstrates a lot of historical ignorance.

Anyway, regarding this topic, there's an entire field of academia which regularly studies intergenerational economic mobility (Sociology). Would anyone familiar enough with the field like to provide us with a paper on this topic? (Preferably about the US)

tritogeneia• 15 years ago

Networking can mean two different things and the author's conflating them.

1. You have a connection with a successful professional and so you're closer to promising job opportunities.

2. Your social circle contains a lot of rich people who have the habits and lifestyle typical of the rich, and you absorb a lot of their behavior by osmosis, which helps you succeed.

It's really hard to extend the benefits of the second kind of "networking" to more than a few poor people, and usually they have to be children. (Prep for Prep, college admissions decisions.)

On the other hand, it would be quite possible to develop online institutions to help with the first kind of networking. Create alternative, non-college ways to signal ability, and create ways for employers to connect with those able but isolated people. (I'm working on a project that has applications in that direction.)

hxa7241• 15 years ago

Is it access to the networks, or that the networks are a fixed size?

To put it another way: one might say the reason people cannot get into university is they score too low on their grades -- so the solution is to get everyone the training to enable them to score higher. Except then the universities will simply set the entrance threshold higher.

ctdonath3• 15 years ago

It's not access to networks. It's not doing anything with the opportunity when they do have access. I see this a lot: those who view access as a mere possession go nowhere; those who view access as a means to an end advance. This, in the popular discussions of how to aid the poor, is woefully under-addressed - probably because for all the things you can do for someone (and feel good about doing), the one critical core factor is self-motivation: you can't make someone do what they need to for their own good.

This nation provides tremendous access to networks and other opportunities for the poor. Maybe not unlimited access to the top networks from the bottom (the classic "can't afford Harvard" red herring), but there is more than enough access to get out of poverty. The funding is there, the doors are open, the paths are clear, assistance is eager - but if someone won't take the steps that only they themselves can take, they won't get anywhere.

I see stark examples of this over and over. It's not lack of access, it's lack of personal motivation.

stcredzero9• 15 years ago

the one critical core factor is self-motivation: you can't make someone do what they need to for their own good.

I doubt that all of the poor lack all personal motivation. For one thing, there is considerable social disincentive for people who unintentionally signal that they are poor.

I remember reading one account of a poor woman who had no idea she could walk into a downtown skyscraper. She always thought that she'd have to check in at the desk or present some sort of ID. This is true for some buildings, but not for all of them.

In the case of attractive women, I'm sure the number of guys who would actually talk to her and ask for her number are much smaller than the number of guys that want to.

ctdonath3• 15 years ago

It's not just having access to networks, it's using them. Can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.

All too often I see, from first hand experience, the poor and the middle class having the same opportunities: broadly speaking, the latter take advantage thereof, the former don't.

Sure, some networks are not accessible. Many are, and if one does not take advantage of what opportunities one does have, then more will not become available.

afterburner8• 15 years ago

This is also a network effect: being around people who always take advantage of what's around them teaches you to do the same.

jinushaun• 15 years ago

Blah blah white people. Blah blah blah black people. Same old story of white guilt by the NYT

I'm neither white nor black, but I was definitely poor. Grew up in the ghetto with gang violence. The problem isn't "access" or outreach programs for poor people—the problem is and always will be the parents. My parents stressed the importance of education and now I do well. My friends' parents didnt, and most of them barely graduated high school. Some even dropped out.

lallysingh• 15 years ago

I agree with you across the board, but I have to point out that you used level-of-education as your comparative metric, which seems suboptimal in making your point. How were you vs your friends in other metrics of success?

poppysan• 15 years ago

It is not about "white guilt" at all. This isn't even about racism as much as it is about classes, so I think the statement is off...

Growing up poor, I know firsthand that parents don't stress education enough, in my opinion. Most of those parents have no idea about how to change their situations or they would do it themselves. This is what the outreach programs and access to different ways of thinking, a view of how easy it is to get ahead, and access to opportunities that their parent may have never even knew about address.

ajscherer• 15 years ago

It's wonderful that your parents stressed the importance of an education. If only your education had stressed the importance of actually reading a piece before responding to it! Perhaps then you would have noticed that this piece: isn't in the new york times; doesn't talk about outreach programs for poor poeple; only mentions race via quoting a 1999 Malcom Gladwell piece

The post argues that the income-boosting effect of going to a top college isn't due to the education one receives, but instead is due to the possibility of inclusion in a network of people who are all more likely to find success. In other words the friends you meet at a top college are a much better influence than the friends you meet in the hood, and having a good network of friends is more beneficial to your career than what you learn in the classroom.

Of course if you escaped the ghetto to do well you probably know everything there is to know about how poverty works. Other people's thoughts are just sort of a speedbump on your way to let the truth shine here on hn.

MartinCron3• 15 years ago

instead is due to the possibility of inclusion in a network of people who are all more likely to find success.

I recently looked into the University of Washington Technical Management MBA program and the University was pretty brazen about admitting this. They spent far more time talking about networks and ROI than academic rigor.

Business schools are all about networking and the social aspect. I feel that as an introvert, I got a lot less out of my undergraduate business education than many of my classmates did.

rglover• 15 years ago

I think the author makes a good point here, but unfortunately networking is only a mere fraction of this equation. More than anything, in order for impoverished students to better understand the situation, someone needs to tell them. Explain how our current social structure is unfair and doesn't yield any advantage. Is it grim? Of course. But without a heads up how the hell are these kids going to protect themselves? When you're that young, everything seems attainable (even if just a little bit). Unfortunately, as these kids transition out of high school into adulthood, they begin to realize that they may not have a better path. By instilling thoughts early on, explaining the necessity to focus on school work and the value that it provides your life (also explaining what's actually available, i.e. the networks discussed here) could prove to be a motivator for lots of kids. In order to be educated you need to be educated.

solson• 15 years ago

Having been poor (not 3rd world poor, poor by American standards) I found the most difficult thing is leaving the poverty stricken network. You don't feel like you've made it until you reject the entire mindset. Until then, you feel like you've sold out. My mother still makes me feel guilty and shames me every time I see her. Until you've had a parent who shames you for doing better than they did, you'll never understand the trap. I tell my upper middle class neighbors about this and they can't imagine parents who wouldn't want their children to do better than them. While I still talk to my parents I've dumped the rest of the network. I protect myself and my family from my old network. Their whole way of thinking is poison. With many of them you risk violence, drugs, abuse, sexual abuse, racism, etc. Even if you trust one or two of them you can never trust who they will bring you or your family in contact with. No amount of mentoring or example setting has helped, it just breeds resentment. Their world view traps them right where they are and their rejection, resentment, and hostility to a better way of life creates their poverty and isolation. Sending them to Harvard isn't going to make a damn bit of difference. Well, MAYBE if you sent one or two, but if you sent enough, they'd just ruin Harvard.

I came to the conclusion many years ago that in America poverty is a contagious mindset, nothing more. But I do understand that it is a difficult mindset to escape due to social issues. In all honesty, in most cases the middle class and rich have good reason not to network with the poor.

j1233• 15 years ago

"With many of them you risk violence, drugs, abuse, sexual abuse, racism, etc."

This modern bugbear of racism is getting ridiculous. Did you really just equate "racism" with sexual abuse? What does racism even mean anymore? Is it only institutional discrimination, e.g. the refusal of the publicly funded government to hire some races? That's where it started. Now, you can be a racist if you have a type you prefer to date that doesn't suit the whims of your accuser.

Way to not "risk racism."

krschultz4• 15 years ago

The ridiculous part was picking one word out of a very thoughtful post (and one written as a first person account, not conjecture) and attacking that rather than the overall point. The first time I read his story I didn't even notice that he had mentioned racism in it, it was largely immaterial.

But quoting only that part makes it sound like he is blaming racism as the cause for poverty, which he clearly isn't.

If I had a penny for every time I heard something to the effect of 'if only poor people stopped complaining/blaming racism and started pulling themselves out of poverty, there would be no more poverty', I'd have enough to help people get out of poverty.

Although I guess there is no point in arguing with throw-away accounts.

stcredzero9• 15 years ago

What does racism even mean anymore?

It's a form of bigotry which is also deeply aligned with hate, often violent hate. It's probably the same thing that sparks sectarian violence.

It can also reside, in a form without overt violent manifestation.

Now, you can be a racist if you have a type you prefer to date that doesn't suit the whims of your accuser.

I would admit that this isn't sufficient to label someone of racism. The question to ask would be: Does the vivid thought of a loved one (a parent or a child) dating a member of a given race cause a strong emotional reaction?

I'm not sure what racism is. I'm not sure academics have a good handle on all of the mechanisms by which it operates, but, in the words of the Penny Arcade guys, it is a thing. Its operation in the real world is undeniable. For many in the context of minority, it is very palpable.

EDIT: It's probably connected to some suite of group organization/defense instincts. It probably operates on the same level that religion operates on.

stcredzero9• 15 years ago

Way to not "risk racism."

http://www.reddit.com/r/longtext/comments/ga51e/what_is_is_r...

http://www.alaindebenoist.com/pdf/what_is_racism.pdf

eiji• 15 years ago

Wow, I hope this is not the first comment I see here because of upvotes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility

afterburner8• 15 years ago

People develop those bad attitudes, viewpoints, or whatever, in large part because they are poor. The contagion aspect, if it exists, is secondary. You are simply advocating the preservation of the elite by gating access to it. Of course if everyone had access to the same networks there would be no elite anymore. If it raises the prospects of the vast majority of Americans by, say, 5%, that would actually be great for the country, and maybe not having an elite wouldn't be so bad (to the extent this is even possible, of course there will always be some that are far ahead of the curve). But it would be bad-mouthed as socialism.

afterburner8• 15 years ago

Hey, if I'm being downvoted for my last sentence, then keep in mind that is the statement in my post actually most likely to be true.

forkandwait5• 15 years ago

"People develop those bad attitudes, viewpoints, or whatever, in large part because they are poor. The contagion aspect, if it exists, is secondary."

I think this is the official leftist dogma, but I actually fail to see any obvious causality.

I think it assumes that structural lack of opportunity (ie you qualified to be a surgeon, but the y only job you can get is shoeshine boy because you are black) leads to resentment leads to bad behavior. And that there is no feedback from bad behavior to lack of opportunity. And that cultural diffusion just doesn't exist or doesn't matter.

Am I getting this right? Not a sarcastic question, I think there are massive amounts of assumption that creep in unnoticed in all these discussions, by me as much as anyone.

And just for the record, (1) I didn't downvote you, even though I think you are wrong, and wrong in a way that is holding the USA back, and (2) I would consider myself a socialist.

I just think socialism should get away from "fight the rich! bad rich people!" to working on how to enculturate and change the poor so the rich just go poof and disappear; OF COURSE there is the danger we go too far in this, and there is also the fact that we need to make careful and tentative value judgements about good versus bad behavior, something the left is, reasonably given history, loathe to do. (ramble, ramble, ... sorry...)

run4yourlives3• 15 years ago

advocating the preservation of the elite by gating access to it

This statement assumes that there is a fixed amount of wealth that must be protected; it's prevalent in socialist thinking, as well as in the thinking of the poor (it's part of the contagion).

It's also 100% incorrect. The creation of wealth is not a zero-sum game.

forkandwait5• 15 years ago

I have had a sort of reverse experience, but which has led me to believe that poverty is a "contagious mindset, nothing more" as well: My family were academics, so our bank accounts were mostly empty, our clothes were pretty old, etc, but we grew in upper middle class New York. I pretended to be blue collar in my twenties, thinking I would be the next great socialist author. However, when I got sick of, well, being poor, I just started taking classes at the community college, schmoozing my teachers and my bosses, and voila, I am a solidly middle class data hacker 15 years later. I don't have the bank account I would have had if I went to college earlier and started investing, but whatever, I am so not poor. For the blue collar people I worked with before the transition, however, the idea of getting a bunch of education and then becoming a manager was inconceivable and frankly immoral; they have probably not done as well as I in the last 15 years.

I hope God appreciates humor, because if I say grace, it always includes something like "and thanks for giving me an upper middle class cultural background", because, well, I would be f*ed with out it (as are LOTS AND LOTS of people in the US).

Also -- note that I have not mentioned race. I think it has become largely irrelevant to the dynamics of poverty, thank god, but only because my experience shows me that you can be totally screwed by the above culture of poverty and be of the same british isle/ german descent as my upper middle NYC friends.

EDIT: And I think we should be throwing our weight into fixing this massive cultural problem, along with the wasted human potential it causes (really expensive to hire prison guards and social workers). However, the left says "there is no cultural problem" and the right says "screw em, its their own damn fault", even while the US rots from the inside.

bluekeybox• 15 years ago

> For the blue collar people ... the idea of getting a bunch of education and then becoming a manager was inconceivable and frankly immoral

Not for all of them, but for disturbingly many. The problem is exacerbated by peer pressure: as soon as one tries to change something, one is booed and labeled a social climber. Because many people base their morals on what their surrounding group believes to be right, becoming rich starts being perceived as immoral.

> However, the left says "there is no cultural problem" and the right says "screw em, its their own damn fault"

Far left says there is no cultural problem because it is infatuated with the culture of poverty itself. There is this belief among many leftists that being poor is "moral" while being rich is not. So the left considers the culture of the poor to be superior and more "authentic". Similarly, in a perverse twist, the far right believes that being rich is almost equal to being moral (because wealth is God's gift to men or some other such nonsense). Basically people like to imagine their corresponding social groups as being the most moral of all.

iamelgringo2• 15 years ago

May I respectfully suggest that there are very different kinds of poverty, and that not all kinds of poverty are due to cultural choices.

I came to the conclusion many years ago that in America poverty is a contagious mindset, nothing more.

You are making very, very broad generalizations and stereotyping an entire socio-economic category of people.

My parents grew up in rural Minnesota in absolute poverty. My father didn't use a toilet or shower until he was 17 and moved to a "large" high school where they could shower after gym class. He worked his way through 3 Bachelor's degrees and a Master's degree in Education, and then chose a live of relative poverty to become a minister and work in Central America.

I've had to be financially independent since I was 17. I've worked a job to pay my own bills since I was 14. I grew up rarely buying clothes at a store, and wearing hand me downs.

None of that was a matter of contagious mindset.

I worked in the ghetto in Chicago as an ER and trauma nurse for years, and yes, there are definitely choices that people make that make them continue in poverty, but there are also systemic issues that make escaping poverty in the inner city extremely difficult.

In the inner city, it takes a lot more time to take a bus to the grocery store, purchase food and bring it back home and cook it. Groceries are _tons more expensive in large cities. Access to banking is more difficult because of similar reasons, so people use check cashing services, which cost exorbitant amounts. Transportation is much more difficult, because you end up having to take expensive public transportation back and forth to work.

Banks make Billions of dollars a year on bounced check fees and overdraft charges. That means that banking is much more expensive for those people that can least afford it. Credit card companies make Billions of dollars each year in over limit fees, and late fees. In fact, people who max out their credit cards are a creditor's best customer. These are systemic problems that keep people in poverty. That's not a cultural mindset.

Who would ever dream of commuting 2 hours a day for a minimum wage job. I worked with plenty of people at Walgreens on Rush and Division in Chicago that did just that. Those were the jobs available to them.

Yes, people make choices that keep them in poverty. Yes, there are mindsets that keep people in poverty. But, to ignore systemic, structural problems that keep people in poverty in America is just plain wrong.

ctdonath3• 15 years ago

Life is hard to live in a place where life is hard to live.

There is some push to discuss "food deserts" as a social problem subject to sociopolitical solutions. Thing is, a desert is what it is because there is little there to sustain life - and the prime way to deal with that, short of either imposing expensive infrastructure or accepting grinding bare-sustenance living, is MOVE: don't be there. Ditto these urban "food deserts" (or "banking deserts", or ...): the solution isn't trying to impose an infrastructure on a system which has a natural resistance thereto, and will require enormous costs with little payback, the solution is to recognize "this is a bad place to exist in" and get out. Yes, it can be hard to move for many reasons; which is cumulatively harder - leaving, or staying?

If you're going to commute 2 hours every day, you've already proven you can move. And people do! There are plenty of towns and cities (Detroit a good current example) where people finally realized "this isn't working, I'm outta here" and left, leaving the systemic structural problems behind.

My recurring conclusion on the issue: the problem isn't opportunity, the problem is people not acting on opportunity. You can't force them to, and if they won't then nothing will change for them.

ellyagg• 15 years ago

IQ is an extremely important factor in success, but studies show that students obtain better outcomes if they think hard work is the most important factor.

Social and systemic factors play an extremely important role in an individual's momentary poverty, but I'd bet a lot that those who believe otherwise are far more likely to overcome it. Mainly, the folks I've known personally who blame their bad situations on social and systemic factors were losers.

detokaal• 15 years ago

As a teacher in a ghetto school, and as a child of parents who grew up poor (and of grandparents who survived the great depression), let me help him make some distinctions.

I have noticed two distinct types of poverty. The first is the OP type: generational poverty based on dependence and a mind-set of either victimization or unbreakable poor choice habits. They are stuck. Getting these kids out of the situation, is as he says, nigh impossible. I've taught 1000s of these kids, and their upbringing, the habits they learn, and don't learn, the role models they have, are difficult to escape and change. A handful of students out of each grade somehow leave - and never come back. The one characteristic they all seem to share is that somewhere along the line (genetics or personality) they have a work ethic or type A character. Even so, they do not have the social skills to advance very far in their careers past college and entry-level job.

The second type is the working poor. They don't really exist anymore as I know them in my parent's generation. They bust ass in 16 hour days of hard labor, save money and penny pinch, always planning for the future. Now days, this attitude is found in many middle class families. My uncle won't even collect his SS check because "he doesn't need it." My relatives would rather starve than take anything from the government or even their local church.

The first type learns how to do the opposite: game the welfare and social system for every penny and benefit and get, even if it requires dishonesty. These people coach their children on what to say at school to the adults to ensure they get all of the free benefits, and to ensure we don't call welfare for an inspection of their homes or income.

/rant off

api3• 15 years ago

People will defend their self-inflicted misery.

This is a big part of the dynamic of alcoholism, drug addiction, bad relationships, and stupid dogmatic ideologies.

I've always thought that hell would be a place where everyone burns for eternity, but there's a way to turn off the flames. They never do because they are afraid of change, and because burning for eternity is a part of their self-identity.

Swizec• 15 years ago

Just wanted to thank you for giving me an awesome tweet/quote/thing. Paraphrased as such: "Hell is a place where everyone burns for eternity, but doesn't put out the flames because they're afraid of change."

stcredzero9• 15 years ago

People will defend their self-inflicted misery.

This is a big part of the dynamic of alcoholism, drug addiction, bad relationships, and stupid dogmatic ideologies.

I bet it plays into working life and the various "geek scenes".

nate_meurer• 15 years ago

Goddamn, that last sentence is a profound statement. I see it happen around me over and over again. Very well said.

peterhunt• 15 years ago

When I was like 12 or 13, my dad (an attorney) was doing some patent work for an MIT grad student who later went on to be a professor of CS. I was interested in computers at the time and trying to teach myself, and as a favor, my dad asked him to show me a few things.

He ended up teaching me Scheme, getting me to commit to an open-source 3D engine and work on computer vision stuff over the course of my early high school years. I ended getting into a top collegiate CS program with a very low high school GPA - primarily because the work I was doing outside of the classroom was pretty good. This degree opened the door to a masters degree and made finding a job much easier.

Today, I'm 23 and working full-time. My dad has started reminding me why I got to where I am, and that I need to give back and do what was done for me - find an aspiring kid who wants to learn, and teach them.

Maybe there are some problems with the mindset of the poor, but I think that part of the problem is that I am probably going to find this kid through my own middle-class network and continue to perpetuate a culture of mentorship that is often inaccessible to the poor.

mindcrime3• 15 years ago

So don't... make it a point to consciously seek out a way to connect with someone who wouldn't usually have a chance to work with someone like you. Find the poorest neighborhood near where you live, find out what high-school is there, call the principal and see if there's some way you can engage with them to do some kind of mentoring or whatever. Of course that's just an example, but hopefully you get the drift: if this point matters to you, do something specific to break that cycle and help someone poor.

run4yourlives3• 15 years ago

This. I understand exactly what you are saying, but since it doesn't jive with many people's world view, there will be stiff objection.

The only cure for poverty (in western countries), ultimately, is the person that is poor. While there are many ways and unfortunate circumstances that one can find themselves poor - and as a society I believe it is incumbent on us to provide the assistance to lessen the occurrence and/or effects of such events - the ultimate recovery is in the hands of the individual.

They are actually hindered in this by the collective network of the permanently poor - supported by political movements on the far left that stem from this same collective belief system.

Programs should be tailored to address poverty in two ways: 1. Preventing new members of the network, by mitigating the circumstances that create poverty, and, however unpopular; 2. Disrupting the network itself, by purposely setting things up in a way that the person in poverty is isolated from other poor people and surrounded with a network that encourages them to adjust their thinking.

I'm not holding my breath, but I'd love to see some experiments along this line.

ShabbyDoo• 15 years ago

I just got done reading this. It's admittedly not a scholarly work -- it's a set of interviews which paint a narrative about how it feels to move from the working class to the upper-middle class in America. Your statement about being shamed for doing better than your parents represents one of the book's themes.

http://www.amazon.com/Limbo-Blue-Collar-Roots-White-Collar-D...

I am an oddity. Although I grew up in a blue collar town and my dad was a factory worker/janitor, all four of my grandparents had college degrees. So, I identified with the book's stories in odd ways -- sometimes understanding the working class guy and sometimes understanding the upper middle class one.

[BTW, someone here on HN recommended this book. To that person, thanks!]

schnaars• 15 years ago

That's crazy! I thought that it was just my parents that did that. This past April, my dad told me that I didn't pay enough in taxes and that I should paying much more. Thanks, Dad!

I remember reading a quote from Bono where he talked about the crab mentality of his home town (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crab_mentality). One of the reasons I avoid Facebook is that it is just an easier way for that network and the poison thinking that you mentioned to flourish.

agnosticnixie• 15 years ago

No offense, but you sound like a nouveau riche, on top of bad generalizations

sili• 15 years ago

A number of my professional friends participate in mentoring programs for young underprivileged kids. From what this article talks about, such programs should have a good potential at making a difference, at least for those that go through it.

trebor• 15 years ago

You can be broke and you can be poor. Being broke just means you don't have money—been there, left that. But I equate poor with the mindset that repeatedly produces being broke and living paycheck to paycheck.

If you want to make money and stop being poor you have to stick with a tight budget. Stop spending more than you make, and evaluate whether or not you need that super-cool iPhone you just adore. At $70 a month a single iPhone could put food on your table, or the money you save by downgrading to a clamshell "stupid phone" could help pay off the credit card.

Money doesn't solve money management problems. Solve how you manage your money and you automatically keep more. A spendthrift with great social connections is still poor.

pessimizer5• 15 years ago

I think I'm going to be the only person commenting here who's going to cop to getting jobs all the time based on nothing but middle class social connections. I've gotten jobs through uncle's girlfriends/father's frat brothers/my drinking buddies. Honestly, most people I come in contact with know somebody with or have the ability to give me work, and I have the ability to get some of them work just by being a piece of the network for now, but probably after I'm further along in my career, directly. I have no doubt that if I become a business owner, or pursue a managerial track, I'll be expected to do the same thing for other people and their kids.

How else are you expected to get the million years of experience on everything expected at every job? The only entry-level jobs I see advertised are for entry-level geniuses.

I don't think that this can be artificially created by a third party for adults.

The advice that I would give to actual poor people: make friends with people with money. Wrack your brains to think of ways to do things for them for free so you can become a part of the favor trading network. Drink with them a lot - unless they're religious people, then pray with them. Only date people who have a family that has money. More money is better than less money. Avoid people with no money.

MartinCron3• 15 years ago

Somewhat less cynical advice that I'll give to young people: Go to college, at least for a little while, and get a part-time job or an internship. Companies will hire a college student with little to no experience, but not a college graduate with little to no experience.

Many people only figure this out when it's too late.

pessimizer5• 15 years ago

Agree completely.

Also, college and internships are the best places to create social relationships with people with money. Remember that even though you may be intimidated by all of the fanciness and money around you in those environments, this is a period of time that rich people are actually slumming (assuming you're not at an expensive private/ivy league college) and will likely come into contact with more people that are out of their class than at any other point in their lives. A good number of people you can meet in highly contested internships are in the last non-managerial/executive job they'll ever have.

bane5• 15 years ago

Having been poor (U.S. standard) during much of my elementary and middle school years, and then escaped to a relative level of upper middle class comfort...there is one defining characteristic between my peers from back then who made it out of that situation, and those who are still there decades later: a broken decision making process best and the inability to plan exemplified in the famous Marshmallow test.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marshmallow_experiment

It brings to mind a very recent discussion I had with a close friend from those days, one who hasn't managed to break out of a cycle of being poor. He was telling me how excited he was about a new idea where he was going to enroll himself and and his 12 year old son into an expensive martial arts school for some father-son bonding time every week.

I remarked back, "but you barely make rent every month (and you split rent with 3 other adults in a relatively inexpensive area), your cell phone is routinely shut off for non-payment, your credit is so bad you can't even qualify for the highest interest lowest balance credit cards allowed by law, your cars are perpetually broken down/repossessed etc. you have a pending lawsuit for non-payment to a doctor because you couldn't pay your medical bills, etc. etc. etc. how on earth do you expect to pay for this? If I were you, I'd figure out how to resolve my financial situation first so that you can then do those kinds of father-son things you want at your leisure."

"Well how do I do that?"

"Instead of spending $250 a month on this, why don't you spend half as much and go to the local community college and finish up your associates (he's already finished a semester, so it was only another year, year and half left), translate that into a higher paying job or promotion or whatever, pay off your crap, buy Dad and Son Kung Fu?"

"Look, I only have a short window of opportunity here."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, the lease on the house me and 3 other adults split the rent on is up in 2 years, and because of my money issues I don't know if I can afford to stay living close to my son after that, I may have to move out of state to a cheaper area, I'm seriously considering the Detroit area since the cost of living is low. So I want to do this now, while I can."

This has been a typical conversation over the last 20 years with my friend. A decision point comes up, we'll talk about it, on one hand he'll have an opportunity to improve his lot in life, but he'll have to sacrifice a little now in order to reap rewards later, on the other hand, an emotionally satisfying marshmallow.

Invariable he'll always pick the marshmallow. He's interested in the immediate "feeling" of a decision, unable to project an expectation of a better "feeling" later on. The result is, 20 years later, an otherwise intelligent, honest, good guy nearing middle age has:

- no career progression of any sort, he's actually never worked a full-time job

- he's been fired many times from promising jobs because he was "bored" and pretended to be sick from a mystery illness until they let him go

- has a couple kids he can't support properly

- can't afford a place on his own with living arrangements so complex it would take 4 or 5 long blog posts to explain

- has had a handful of cars repossessed or sold off out of his control

- continues to buy known unreliable vehicles that require constant repair, costing him precious money and time away from work

- did a solid semester at college (with decentish grades) before dropping out because he didn't have enough time to play WoW - he was very proud of having finally cancelled his account...for the 3rd time.

- spends considerable portions of his income on videogames and online subscriptions

- buys random unnecessary crap all the time, "yes that RC helicopter is cool, why is your phone shut off again?"

- has innumerable small medical bills currently in collections, with one pending lawsuit (btw, the one he's getting sued for? Almost the exact cost of a WoW account for a year)

- etc.

Each of these issues can be explained by the Marshmallow test, because to properly deal with any of them requires the ability to defer gratification in the immediate as part of a plan, something, even with decades of coaching, he's unable to do, and thus remains poor.

huherto• 15 years ago

Great point. But if this is true the implication is that we are already limited by our natural ability to delay gratification? Furthermore, will we inherit this ability on our children. So they will be constrained too?

bane5• 15 years ago

I don't know the answer to this, but I suspect that you can teach gratification deferment to many children who currently don't naturally have it -- though there will always be people who are unreachable.

I'm thinking children here because at least in my anecdotal experience, I've had no luck getting any of the poor adults I know to show even the most basic ability. Children can be more malleable in this way.

rprospero• 15 years ago

I've seen the same thing and I've experienced your frustration. However, I also want to offer a counter-point to your argument. You keep coming back to the marshmallow test and how he can't make a sacrifice today for a greater benefit tomorrow. My question is whether he would send a $5,000 banking fee to a Nigerian prince today for a million dollar money transfer next month? Would you?

Delayed gratification is only effective if you believe that you will be rewarded for it. I'm betting that you've never sacrificed a calf to Zeus. That's not because you lack self control, but because you don't believe that you would receive any benefit, not to mention one that would out weigh the cost of the calf. In the same way, your friend is "rationally" choosing to spend $250 a month on a bonding experience with his son instead of spending $125 a month on a failed degree that won't land him a better job. Either way, he's going to get fired, lose his house, and be forced to move to Detroit, but the first lets him move to Detroit with some happy family memories while the other has him moving to Detroit with a worthless piece of paper.

Now, we know that he can prevent his constant economic crises. We've done it for ourselves. Your friend, though, knows that correlation is not causation and the relationship between our self-sacrifice and our economic well being is as tenuous as the relationship between uncle Ernie's lucky Elvis shirt and that time hit the jackpot on the penny slots. As long as financial disaster is "unavoidable", he'll continue to make the only "smart" choice and immediately spend the little money that he does have before he loses that, too.

bane5• 15 years ago

As long as financial disaster is "unavoidable", he'll continue to make the only "smart" choice and immediately spend the little money that he does have before he loses that, too.

I think this is a great insight into why making sound decisions and delaying gratification seems to be such a problem for him and many people stuck in an endless cycle of bring poor.

ipardo• 15 years ago

Exactly. Poverty is inescapable without discipline. Unfortunately, when you have to work long hours at a low-paying day job and then go home to do your chores, the temptation of relaxation becomes unimaginably sweet unless you've already built a solid foundation of discipline in your youth.

api3• 15 years ago

I've thought this for a long time.

It's not the haves vs. the have-nots. It's the connecteds vs. the connected-nots.

zacharytelschow2• 15 years ago

This contentious relationship you state implies a fixed pie economy in which a person can get rich only at the sake of his fellows. Any thinking person would roundly reject such a notion.

On a similar topic is an essay by Paul Graham that you may enjoy: http://www.paulgraham.com/gap.html

api3• 15 years ago

You are technically correct. There is no finite pie. But there is a finite pie in our minds.

We behave instinctively as if there is a finite pie. We push our boots in others' faces instinctively, try to keep them down, shut them out, push them away, because our genes think the pie is finite.

Social networks do act so as to keep outsiders down. Not because it's rational, but they do.

kalmi10• 15 years ago

I know a homeless person who says that he would not work for less than x money/day, where x is more than what the average person earns here in Hungary. (He used to earn a lot. He used to be a baker.)

stcredzero9• 15 years ago

I think there's a similar mechanism by which geeks end up "too geeky".

http://www.scottberkun.com/essays/40-why-smart-people-defend...

http://amzn.com/0300090331

programminggeek• 15 years ago

Poverty is not an academic problem. It's a human problem. There will always be poverty. It can't be solved. To solve poverty you must solve human greed.

j1233• 15 years ago

This I think is the wisest comment I've read here. We live in an age where many people earnestly believe they can reengineer society. They identify aspects of human nature which they don't like and think it's open to reeducation. There is such a thing as human nature. Tabula rasa is a myth.

pessimizer5• 15 years ago

Society has been re-engineered any number of times, to good and bad effect. If you think that how it is where you are right now is how it is, has been, and always will be everywhere, you're wrong. Society is made of people, including visionaries and others who are captivated by their visions and have the ability to implement them. Contemplating human society is not the same as contemplating the stars.

ams61102• 15 years ago

It's not a greed problem. Some people are driven to achieve. If that's greed, fine, call it greed. But others are satisfied to just get by, or subsist. They don't actively try to change anything about their situation. That's not caused by the "greed" of others. It's just their nature. So I agree, there will always be poverty because there will always be people who are satisfied to live in it. And by "satisfied" I don't mean happy, I mean not sufficiently motivated to change.

mindcrime3• 15 years ago

So can we change this? I think we can. It starts with recognizing the problem for what it is and doing what we can to teach kids from impoverished backgrounds not just how to read and write but how to become upwardly mobile in their networking

I'm pretty sure the problem is more complex than just lack of awareness of the importance of a certain approach to networking... and I'm someone who has been down this path - having grown up "dirt poor" in rural southeast NC, and having escaped to a solidly middle-class lifestyle. But I absolutely agree that this is one component of helping people escape poverty, and I'd definitely like to see (and perhaps participate in) some sort of initiative to help raise awareness of this point, especially among younger folks.

Some sort of program, directed at high-school kids, that teaches skills specifically related to networking, economics, entrepreneurship, and all the "stuff" needed to advance economically, would be - IMO - tremendously beneficial.

That said, I believe the point that solson made about mindsets does stand. I grew up with plenty of people who were as poor as I was, and I was willing to make certain sacrifices, and commit to doing things in order to raise my standard of living... many of my peers weren't, and they still live in the sticks and they're still poor. And I honestly don't believe that I'm necessarily (smarter|more talented|more insightful|whatever) than most of them. But I had a different attitude and different ambitions, and - to my mind - that was the single biggest difference.

Edit:

As an aside, though, I'll throw this out... some of my friends who are still "poorer" than me in the financial sense, may actually be happier. I, for example, have never married or had kids, because I was too busy working and trying to make a better life for myself. And now that I'm working on a startup, I work more than ever and have basically quit worrying about dating or anything for a while... OTOH, my friends back home have wives and kids to come home to, play with, go out with, etc. But I have more money. So who's really better off? I would say that's a real grey area. <shrug />

zacharytelschow2• 15 years ago

"'We claim to be part of the American dream and of a system based on merit and opportunity and talent,' Mr. Marx says. 'Yet if at the top places, two-thirds of the students come from the top quartile and only 5 percent come from the bottom quartile, then we are actually part of the problem of the growing economic divide rather than part of the solution.'"

Is your college a meritocracy based on talent or a means of attempting to right social wrongs, Mr Marx? If it's the former, then the income of student's parents should be irrelevant and you should only be wringing your hands over lesser talented pupils getting in over more talented ones. If it's the latter, I can see your concern - patterns of behavior beget success and children often emulate their parents, leaving you stuck with those blasted high achievers. Tough break, that.

MarkPNeyer• 15 years ago

how about a social network algorithm that connects the least connected people with the most connected? imagine VC's having dinner with homeless people.

dkarl• 15 years ago

“We claim to be part of the American dream and of a system based on merit and opportunity and talent,” Mr. Marx says. “Yet if at the top places, two-thirds of the students come from the top quartile and only 5 percent come from the bottom quartile, then we are actually part of the problem of the growing economic divide rather than part of the solution.”

Mr. Marx's job is educating, hopefully as well as possible, people who already have a great educational advantage. Anyone working at Amherst or any other elite college who thinks they can be part of the solution by directly educating underprivileged kids is indulging in fantasy. Access to higher education is not the problem; preparation is. A poor person who is prepared to succeed at an elite college has already risen beyond "underprivileged" and is on a trajectory to the upper middle class.

More precisely, if Mr. Marx is wrong to imply that there is some kind of "merit" and "talent" that makes one capable of handling higher education but is not affected by a child's opportunities and environmental influences. Amherst does not admit people based on their genetic potential or even their winning personality. They try to take social disadvantage into account when judging applicants' academic preparation, but in the end they limit admissions to students who can succeed at Amherst. If Mr. Marx wants to directly help people who are disadvantaged then he should quit Amherst and join some organization that works with people who are not and could not be Amherst students.

fatherlinux• 15 years ago

Honestly, it is just so much more complicated than a two paragraph post on hacker news. This is ridiculous. The title is awesome, like scientists just made some startling new discovery. Ridiculous!

What Really Keeps Poor People Poor

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