Friday, November 18, 2011

International Mobility

The United States represents the least mobile of the nine nations. The other eight being: United Kingdom, France, Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway, and Denmark.

Investopedia explains Trickle Down Theory
Proponents of this theory believe that when government helps companies, they will produce more and thereby hire more people and raise salaries. The people, in turn, will have more money to spend in the economy.

Trickle Down Theory. Investopedia, 2010. Web. 17 Nov. 2011.

Poverty: The Leading Cost of Depression

There’s a correlation between poverty and depression, as this Gallup Poll points out. 30% of poor Americans have been diagnosed with depression, compared to the overall total of 17% of Americans:

http://filipspagnoli.wordpress.com/stats-on-human-rights/statistics-on-poverty/statistics-on-poverty-and-health/

Imposing An Increased Tax On Individuals Who Can Afford It Would Create Great Revenue

Restore the Top Tax Rates

Revenue potential: $700 billion over 10 years

Those of us with taxable incomes over $200,000 (individuals) or $250,000 (households) would see a minimal tax increase—from 35% to 39.6%, a rate still far lower than the one under President Reagan—but the increased revenue would raise an estimated $700 billion over the next decade. This would affect a very small fraction of U.S. taxpayers—about 2.5 percent.

Restore the Top Tax Rates. Wealth For the Common Good, 2010. Web. 17 Nov. 2011.

Opinions On Selfish Priorities

Tax Cuts for the Wealthy—The Wrong Priority

By Joel Friedman and John Springer

Joel Friedman, senior fellow at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

John Springer is a senior writer at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities

Just as Hurricane Katrina brought new attention to the problem of poverty in the United States, the ongoing debate over how to pay for hurricane-related relief and reconstruction has brought new attention to the nation’s fiscal problems.
But it’s the policy course set by the Bush administration well before Katrina struck—not the cost of rebuilding after the recent series of hurricanes—that will lead our nation to ruinously high budget deficits in the long term.
The large tax cut bills Congress passed in 2001 and 2003 have done much to drive down federal revenues to historically low levels when measured as a share of the economy. Extending the tax cuts—one of the immediate legislative goals of the Bush administration and Republican leaders in Congress—will mean low revenue for decades. (Under current law, the tax cuts are scheduled to expire by 2010 but Congress likely will act this session to extend the cuts.)
In contrast, federal spending, while not particularly high now, is projected to rise dramatically in coming decades to help pay for baby boomers’ retirement and health care.
If we ignore this long-term mismatch between high expenditures and low revenues, deficits will explode, rising to levels that could seriously damage the economy. A logical first step would be to reconsider the parts of the 2001 and 2003 tax cut bills that have given enormous tax windfalls to extremely high-income households. Here’s why.
1. Wealthy households receiving tax cuts are the least in need of government help. Not only do they earn more than other Americans, their incomes are growing faster.
Earlier this year, the Congressional Budget Office released data showing that between 1979 and 2002, the average after-tax income for people in the top 1 percent of the population more than doubled, rising by 111 percent after adjusting for inflation. In contrast, average after-tax incomes rose by 15 percent for those in the middle fifth of the income spectrum, and by just 5 percent for the lowest-income fifth of the population.
As a result, over the past decade, higher-income people have enjoyed a larger share of the nation’s total income than at any time since the Depression.
2. High-income tax cuts are expensive. People making at least $1 million a year will enjoy an average $103,000 tax break this year from the 2001 and 2003 tax cut bills. That’s nearly 140 times as large as the $742 tax cut the average middle-income household will receive. Plus, the tax breaks for the wealthiest will continue to grow as more tax cuts enacted in 2001 for high-income households phase in over the coming years.
If you add up all the tax benefits that households in the top one percent of the population—a group making at least $380,000 this year—will receive each year from the 2001 and 2003 tax cut bills when they are fully in effect, this amount is as much as the federal government spends annually on education. It’s also nine times the total that the federal government spends on environmental protection each year.
3. Tax cuts for high-income households are being “paid for” with borrowed money—as are all of the recent tax cuts. Future generations will be forced to pay for them through higher taxes and/or reduced government services. It’s unfair to burden our children and grandchildren with these debts. It’s doubly unfair to expect future generations of middle- and lower-income Americans to pay for large tax cuts enjoyed by today’s affluent Americans.
Moving the federal budget onto a sound long-term footing will require difficult choices all around. Recouping revenues from tax cuts for high-income households would be an appropriate first step in this process, as all Americans would expect the most well-off in the country to share in the sacrifices that will be needed. Otherwise we risk making the gap between wealth and poverty in the United States—a gap that Katrina exposed so disturbingly—even wider.
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Joel Friedman is a senior fellow and John Springer is a senior writer at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. The CBPP is one of the nation’s premier policy organizations working on fiscal policy and public programs that affect low- and moderate-income families and individuals at the federal and state levels.

Friedman, Joel & Springer, John. Tax Cuts for the Wealthy—The Wrong Priority.

American Federation of Labor - Congress of Industrial Organizations, 2011. Web. 17 Nov. 2011.

America's Poor Scattered About the States

Thursday, November 17, 2011

"The American Dream, the idea of the happy ending, is an avoidance of responsibility and commitment."
-Jill Robinson

The Opinions of the American Dream to Today's Society

What is the American Dream?

Cartoon

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Shift In The Job Market

America and Economic Mobility

Although the growth of income inequality has received lots of public attention in recent years, public policy should focus instead on expanding economic opportunity. Of the numerous advantages of concentrating on opportunity, two stand out. One is public support. Americans are less concerned about inequality than economic opportunity. The popular reading of the American Dream is not that America guarantees success to all, but that America tries to ensure equal opportunity so that hard work and initiative pay off. The second advantage is that new legislation will be more likely to win support if it is framed in a way that is popular with both political parties. In our new book, Creating an Opportunity Society, we lay out an agenda of policies aimed at improving education, encouraging work, and strengthening families. We argue that this opportunity-enhancing agenda is one that most people, regardless of political affiliation, can endorse.

Some might think that America already presents people with lots of opportunity to get ahead. But it turns out that you need to pick your parents well. True, there is considerable mobility from one generation to the next, but the American economy tends to help those at the top stay there while making it difficult for those at the bottom to move up. Kids from families in the bottom 20 percent of the income distribution are nearly five times as likely to wind up in the bottom 20 percent as kids from families in the top 20 percent. Similarly, children from other advanced countries are less likely to be stuck at the bottom of the income distribution than children in the U.S.

There is almost universal agreement that education is the key to economic success. Most people know that the family income of those who drop out of school falls far below the family income of those who complete college. Less well known is the fact that the income of those with less than a college degree has not increased for three decades or more. Promoting education is promoting opportunity.

Our research shows that children whose parents were in the bottom 20 percent of earners tripled their odds of earning $85,000 or more per year by obtaining a four-year college degree. Yet kids from poor families are both less likely to enroll in and graduate from college as compared with kids from families with more income.

What can we do to help more disadvantaged children get into college? The most important goal should be to improve their readiness for college coursework by improving their mastery of reading and math skills during the K-12 years. Because research shows that disadvantaged children fall behind in their intellectual development by age three, the focus on learning should begin in the preschool years. The results of a recent scientific evaluation of Head Start raise considerable doubt about whether it boosts school readiness. But the record of preschool programs funded and run by states seems much better than Head Start. Given their success, states should be given a bigger role in using Head Start funds.

The nation has devoted great attention and funding over recent decades to improving K-12 education. The Obama administration is now proposing to amend the No Child Left Behind law, in part by broadening and strengthening its accountability system. The national standards in English and math recently recommended by governors and school superintendents are also a step in right direction. To help students meet these standards we need better teachers along with more orderly classrooms, goals that some charter schools have begun to achieve. The emphasis on accountability, higher standards, and better teachers has put us on the right track to increased school achievement and preparation for post-secondary education.

The process of preparing for and applying for college is too complex. In 2009, about $170 billion in government and private funds were available to help students pay for college, with a considerable share - though not enough - of the money available to students from low-income and minority families. To inform parents while their children are still young that financial aid will be available when their children reach college age, the IRS, based on tax return data, should send annual letters to low-income parents informing them about the amount of money for which their children could qualify to help with college costs, In this way, both parents and children can begin early to prepare for college attendance. Schools should counsel students beginning in middle school about the courses they need to prepare for college and to help them select an appropriate school and apply for financial aid. The 127-question federal form students must complete to apply for financial aid is far too long and confusing. Research shows that applications by low-income youngsters increase when the burden of figuring out the complex application procedure is lifted. The form should be sliced to no more than one page

The strength of these proposals is that nearly all of them are backed by strong research showing that they can individually have positive impacts on the education of disadvantaged kids. Taken together, they can be expected to move the nation closer toward fulfilling our commitment to providing a level playing field for all and substantially increasing opportunity in America.

Http://t.co/jWevnMyg, Bullet. "Ron Haskins: America Needs More Economic Mobility."Breaking News and Opinion on The Huffington Post. Web. 16 Nov. 2011. <http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ron-haskins/america-needs-more-econom_b_517579.html>.

Definition of Economic Mobility

What is economic mobility?
Economic mobility is something we all strive for without really knowing what it is. Economic mobility is the ability of someone to elevate or demote their economic status in the world. You’ve heard it thousands of times on TV and movies (and maybe in real life) where the parents wants the child to have a better life than they did. In the United States we really like to fake economic mobility by purchasing luxury goods to make it seem like we’re doing better than we are. This obsession with economic mobility actually make us worse off than we were if we’d never tried to fake it and didn’t make it.

Economic mobility is commonly measured in terms of income. This is counterintuitive to what personal finance usually cares about, which is wealth. But in economics we’re more concerned with one’s ability to generate value, which is better measured in income than true wealth. And since wealth can be inherited, it’s not an accurate picture of an individual’s economic status. The mobility is usually measured in income quintiles. So if you divide all the family incomes in the US into 5 equal groups, you’ve got your quintiles. This way you have an equal set of the population making an income that fits in each quintile. To explain it better, if the US population was 10 people, each quintile would have 2 people in it.

"What Is Economic Mobility? | Weakonomi¢s." Weakonomics. 8 June 2010. Web. 16 Nov. 2011. <http://weakonomics.com/2010/06/08/weakon-329-economic-mobilit/>.

America The Land Of Opportunity?

Higher Education Gap May Slow Economic Mobility

By ERIK ECKHOLM

Published: February 20, 2008

Economic mobility, the chance that children of the poor or middle class will climb up the income ladder, has not changed significantly over the last three decades, a study being released on Wednesday says.

The authors of the study, by scholars at the Brookings Institution in Washington and sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts, warned that widening gaps in higher education between rich and poor, whites and minorities, could soon lead to a downturn in opportunities for the poorest families.
The researchers found that Hispanic and black Americans were falling behind whites and Asians in earning college degrees, making it harder for them to enter the middle class or higher.
“A growing difference in education levels between income and racial groups, especially in college degrees, implies that mobility will be lower in the future than it is today,” said Ron Haskins, a former Republican official and welfare expert who wrote the education section of the report.
There is some good news. The study highlights the powerful role that college can have in helping people change their station in life. Someone born into a family in the lowest fifth of earners who graduates from college has a 19 percent chance of joining the highest fifth of earners in adulthood and a 62 percent chance of joining the middle class or better.
In recent years, 11 percent of children from the poorest families have earned college degrees, compared with 53 percent of children from the top fifth.
“The American dream of opportunity is alive, but frayed,” said Isabel Sawhill, another author of the report, “Getting Ahead or Losing Ground: Mobility in America.” The report is at economicmobility.org
“It’s still alive for immigrants but badly tattered for African-Americans,” said Ms. Sawhill, an economist and a budget official in the Clinton administration. “It’s more alive for people in the middle class than for people at the very bottom.”
The report and planned studies constitute the most comprehensive effort to examine intergenerational mobility, said John E. Morton of the Pew Trusts, who is managing the project. It draws heavily on a federally supported survey by the University of Michigan that has followed thousands of families since the late 1960s.
A chapter of the report released last fall found startling evidence that a majority of black children born to middle-class parents grew up to have lower incomes and that nearly half of middle-class black children fell into the bottom fifth in adulthood, compared with 16 percent of middle-class white children.
The Pew-sponsored studies are continuing with the involvement of research organizations and scholars. Another report expected in the spring by the more conservative Heritage Foundation will focus on explanations for the trends described in the current report.
Stuart Butler, vice president for economic studies at the Heritage Foundation, said, “It does seem in America now that for people at very bottom it’s more difficult to move up than we might have thought or might have been true in the past.”
Mr. Butler said experts were likely to disagree about the reasons and, hence, on policies to improve mobility. Conservative scholars are more apt to fault cultural norms and the breakdown of families while liberals put more emphasis on the changing structure of the economy and the need for government to provide safety nets and aid for poor families.
“We may well have an economy that rewards certain traits that are typically passed on from parents to children, the importance of education, optimism, a propensity to work hard, entrepreneurship and so on,” he said.
To the extent that the economy rewards those traits, he added, “you’d expect the incomes of children to track more with that of their parents.”
The small fraction of poor children who earn college degrees are likely to rise well above their parents’ status, the study showed.
More than half the children born to upper-income parents, those in the top fifth, who finish college remain in that top group. Nearly one in four remains in the top fifth even without completing college.
Evidence from model programs shows that early childhood education can have lasting benefits, Mr. Haskins said, although the Head Start program is too uneven to produce widespread gains.
In addition, he said, studies show that many poor but bright children do not receive good advice about applying for college and scholarships, or do not receive help after starting college.
“If we did more to help them complete college,” Mr. Haskins said, “there’s no question it would improve mobility.”

Higher Education Gap May SLow Economic Mobility, New York Times

Is America Still Economically Mobile?

Come to America, the land of opportunity. Where entrepreneurs thrive in a capitalist society. The man with an idea can be successful as long as he is dedicated. But there is only so much room for a few individuals to become successful in this economy. These success stories are highly based on an individuals own opinion and motivation on whether or not they can succeed. However, this drive must be recognized in society and a group of people in order to allow this individual with a dream to gain enough momentum to become popular and prosperous.

Excerpt from New York Times editorial published in 2007 entitled The Land of Opportunity? Found in the Opinion section:

The opinion is this, “When questioned about the enormous income inequality in the United States, the cheerleaders of America’s unfettered markets counter that everybody has a shot at becoming rich here. The distribution of income might be skewed, but America’s economic mobility is second to none. Unfortunately, the American dream is not that broadly accessible."

Statistics of the comparison of economic mobility rates between other countries does not favor America as Economically mobile. "One study found that mobility between generations — people doing better or worse than their parents — is weaker in America than in Denmark, Austria, Norway, Finland, Canada, Sweden, Germany, Spain and France. In America, there is more than a 40 percent chance that if a father is in the bottom fifth of the earnings’ distribution, his son will end up there, too. In Denmark, the equivalent odds are under 25 percent, and they are less than 30 percent in Britain."

Though it is possible for a select few to make it big in America and achieve the “American Dream,” it is not an easily occurring event. One must be completely dedicated, establish connections, and the conditions behind success must be perfect, but even when conditions are perfect their is a lot of luck involved.

Click to read the full article: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/13/opinion/13fri2.html

The Land of Opportunity? New York Times, 13 Jan. 2007. Web. 13 Nov. 2011.

Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Death of a Salesman Act II

In the play Death of a Salesman, by Arthur Miller, the idealized concept of the “American Dream” is challenged. The novel illustrates that achieving the American Dream is much more than moving to America and letting success fall into your lap. For example, internal conflicts arise within the main character Willy Loman when he realizes that his personal dream of being settled in the forests of Alaska quarrels with the ideas of the typical American Dream. While Willy seems to shine in the kind of hard labor that requires the use of his own two hands, he is stuck in the world of business just so he can reach the perks of the sacred American Dream. Furthermore, Willy continues to patronize himself, not just at the fact that his profession is ill-suited for his personal interests, but at the need to be popular, or well-liked. Ever since he heard the story of Dave Singleman’s road to the American Dream and decided that modern hard-work was the only necessary path, Willy unrealistically became determined that he could only accomplish the American Dream if he could consider himself to be a “well-liked” coworker, friend, and individual. The idea of the road to the American Dream soon becomes a new religion to Willy. Unfortunately, he becomes so blind to how to rationally achieve success that he turns down the offer of a steady, well-paying career from a man, Charley, who does not particularly like Willy. Willy rejects the offer because he is too caught up in the fantasy that popularity is more important than physical work when striving for success. Willy is just so disillusioned by the concept of the American Dream that he fails to ever accomplish it. He also tries to force his son, Biff, into the facade of his social prosperity by giving him precise “calculations” on how to achieve success, only to be let down when Biff is unable to achieve the high standards of his father. Conflict between father and son continue until Biff wants nothing more than to be forgotten by his father, because he believes that that will be the only way Biff can be free of the myth that Willy has tried to engrave in his mind. By the end of the novel, Willy has committed suicide, representing his failure within his professional and personal lives, and most of all, in achieving the American Dream. Intended for those seeking the revered American Dream, Death of a Salesman exemplifies how people too determined to achieve success through meticulous calculations and social popularity will ultimately lead to failure. Also, if one only believes that you can achieve the American Dream through professional prosperity, you will never be completely successful. To succeed in achieving the American Dream means to be fulfilled in both your professional career as well as your personal interests and relationships.

Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York: Penguin, 1998. Print.

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

Death of Salesman Act I: Rhetorical Summary

The book Death of a Salesman by Arthur Miller focuses on the generalization of the American Dream. The American dream is often defined by the idea that anyone, no matter how harsh their background is, can set up an extremely successful business and basically go from rags to riches. However Arthur Miller's book gives a very different take on it. The purpose of it is to show how some underestimate all the elements required to achieve the American Dream. The main character Willy Loman is used to represent the illogical illusions that some give themselves. The American Dream is often exaggerated in its promises by the people who believe it exists. In Death of a Salesman Willy Loman is determined to achieve the American Dream but goes about it in a very stubborn way and expects too much in return from it. He is involved in work of business because that is the profession or path that is most related to the American Dream. However, Willy Loman is more suited as a labor worker and lacks the intellect in sales management and distribution to ever be remotely successful in business. Willy is too stubborn to realize it until most of his life has gone to waste. In Death of a Salesman Willy is always depending on things to get better in the future but does nothing to influence it, eventually he realizes that the future is no longer the future-it is the present and begins to go mad with the failure he has become. This is very true in the modern world as well. Often times naïve entrepreneurs believe if they have enough “street smarts” they could make due without the “book smarts”, nevertheless like Willy they are very mistaken. There is a part in the book in which Willy makes a remark about vitamins having to do with chemistry to Charley, then goes on to telling him to not speak about what he doesn't know. This very ironic scene is the basis of the advice so many should take before risking all they have. If one knows nothing or lacks the talents required to be successful in a desired profession, they cannot be stubborn and remain ignorant about the requirements. To accomplish the American Dream one must be ambitious as Willy was, but also have the ability to adapt to the changes the surrounding might have. If one isn't prepared to face the instability and uncertainty that the pursuit of the American Dream has then they cannot expect to achieve it. The audience this book was intended for is those who wish to pursuit the American Dream.

Miller, Arthur. Death of a Salesman. New York: Penguin, 1998. Print.

Saturday, October 29, 2011

Capitalism in America was founded on the dreamlike vision of economic mobility. This is a picturesque goal for the less fortunate to develop needed skills and prosper in aspiration to the great inventor. It is our intent to compare the ease of the billionaire lifestyle with the hardship of the minimum wage employee, and establish an insightful manner in which the gap between the rich and poor will shrink, increasing the likely hood of the fantasy that is economic mobility. This shall be accomplished by exposing the hardships of American workers in relation to working for industries run by wealthy powerful people, along with the unemployment rate. There are many beliefs of how money flows through an economy. For example, it is an expectation of the government that by providing tax breaks to the wealthy will spend more and the money will "Trickle Down" to the American people, increasing consumption. However, the average citizens are also expected to increase consumption to allow businesses to flourish therefore creating new jobs, but in the mean time there are not enough jobs and the wealthy are the only people who seem to gain. The wealthy and the average are interdependent, yet the wealthy treat citizens less like partners and more like tools used to accomplish a larger goal. In the event of economic downturn, it is the average hardworking America citizen living for the American dream that loose their jobs, healthcare, and houses putting stress on family and peers. It is time to end the exploitation of middle and lower class America.