CDR: While we're talking about income mobility... (was Re: ip: NCPA Policy Digest 11-2-00)

R. A. Hettinga rah at shipwright.com
Fri Nov 3 05:03:01 PST 2000


At 10:52 AM -0600 on 11/2/00, National Center for Policy Analysis wrote:


> UP AND DOWN THE INCOME LADDER
>
> Politicians addicted to class warfare rhetoric use the term "the
> rich" as though it were some permanent economic class. But more
> moderate analysts point out that individuals move up and down
> the income ladder with startling frequency.
>
> Are those individuals with higher incomes right after graduation
> from high school or college still on the top rung 10 or 20 years
> later? Anyone who has attended a school reunion knows that the
> end results are often surprising.
>
>    o   A Social Security-based study has documented that more
>        than 70 percent of male workers move significant
>        distances up or down the income ladder in a span of only
>        15 years.
>
>    o   Earnings histories tracked by Social Security show that
>        less than 50 percent of the people on the top or bottom
>        rung in any year are still on the same rung 10 to 15
>        years later.
>
>    o   On the bottom rung, the "stagnation rate" is only 35
>        percent.
>
>    o   Another study, using the National Longitudinal Survey of
>        Youth, has revealed that 60 percent of the young people
>        who start out working for minimum wages no longer work
>        for such low wages two years later -- and only 15 percent
>        have minimum-wage jobs three years later.
>
> Some observers point out that many academics fail to appreciate
> the dynamics of economic mobility because they work in rigidly
> hierarchical university systems where promotion must be granted
> by one's seniors.
>
> The evidence is overwhelming, however, that such immobility is
> the exception, not the rule.
>
> Source: Bradley Schiller (American University School of Public
> Affairs), "Who Are the Rich?" Washington Times, November 2,
> 2000.
>
> For text
> http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/ed-column-2000112193044.htm
>
> For more on Income Mobility
> http://www.ncpa.org/pd/economy/econ7.html

-- 
-----------------
R. A. Hettinga <mailto: rah at ibuc.com>
The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/>
44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA
"... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity,
[predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to
experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'





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