The American dream?

[piece-itpete]

From a Pew report:

"Pursuing the American Dream uses the most current data to measure mobility by family income, wealth, and personal earnings to reveal how closely tied a person’s place on the economic ladder is to that of his or her parents’. While a majority of Americans exceed their parents’ family income and wealth, the extent of their absolute mobility gains are not always enough to move them to a different rung of the economic ladder. Measuring both absolute and relative mobility, some of the highlights of the research include:


Eighty-four percent of Americans have higher family incomes than their parents did.

However, those born at the top and bottom of the income ladder are likely to stay there as adults. Over 40 percent of Americans raised in the bottom quintile of the family income ladder remain stuck there adults, and 70 percent remain below the middle.

African Americans are still less likely to exceed their parents’ income than are whites and they are more likely to be stuck at the bottom of the economic ladder across a generation.

A four-year college degree promotes upward mobility from the bottom and prevents downward mobility from the middle and the top.

...."

http://www.pewtrusts.org/our_work_re...6&category=596

Pete

[piece-itpete]

Pops a coupla bubbles on both sides.

Income HAS gone up practically across the board.

Yet, we are not the most upwardly country.

Pete

[merrylander]

Sure and look where it went up the most. Incomes have risen but the report says nowt about - relative to ???.

Got something today that makes me wonder about financial reporting here. Last week I wrote a check for $2650 CDN to Amex. Today they notified me that they had received $2657 US, yet the WaPo pegs thhe $CDN at $0.9855.

[Boreas]

Pete, there's a key element in that study you're apparently missing. It's referring to household income. How many 2-earner households were there then and how many now?

Nuff sed.

John

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by Boreas

Pete, there's a key element in that study you're apparently missing. It's referring to household income. How many 2-earner households were there then and how many now?

Nuff sed.

John

And, there you have it.

Pop supported a family of NINE, semi-comfortably in a nice little four bedroom Cape Cod, on one bluecollar wage in the 1960s.

I'm pretty sure you'd be hard pressed to find that today.

Dave

[piece-itpete]

Ok, we'll assume we've got that right. [edit: rest of post: um, d'oh I can be an idiot]

Pete

[piece-itpete]

Dave, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone willing to live in an old fashioned smaller house now. How many tvs did you have? Cars?

All you have to do is look at average SF of houses built per year to see the difference.

Pete

[BlueStreak]

I think one thing Herbert Hoover had right was his failed promise of; "A chicken in every pot and a car in every garage."

Some, these days, seem to think the American dream is the unbridled accrual of ridiculous wealth for a handful of the most ambitious. I've always thought of it as the creation of reasonably prosperous and secure way of life for as many citizens as possible.

I guess this desire to see well-being for the common man makes me a Communist in todays atmosphere? Oh, well. So be it.

Dave

[merrylander]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

Dave, you'd be hard pressed to find anyone willing to live in an old fashioned smaller house now. How many tvs did you have? Cars?

All you have to do is look at average SF of houses built per year to see the difference.

Pete

Grew up in a four bedrooms two story house, have no idea in retrospect what the square footage was. No TV but a damn nice floor standing radio, used to gather in the Living Room of a Sunday and catch all the old shows. First car we got was a 10 year old Oakland (Pontiac later bought them). You could walk to anything you needed, post office, grocery store, dance hall, boating club, etc.

Got the first TV about 1950 and by this time we had an English Ford Consol.

Sold the first house as it was getting too much for Mom, built a single story two bedroom. cause the other three were married.

[BlueStreak]

I love my small, inexpensive and easily maintained house. The last thing I'd want is some giant, expensive PITA sitting on 12 acres of land that I don't need and never use. I am very "conservative" in this regard.

We had one 27" color t.v., a console stereo (Both RCA.), two cars and the worlds ugliest "Early American" style furniture. (I'm sure people in the 18th century had recliners with faux wood trim and pictures of themselves printed on the upholstery.)

Dave