Childhood poverty in America

Erik Kain

Erik writes about video games at Forbes and politics at Mother Jones. He's the contributor of The League though he hasn't written much here lately. He can be found occasionally composing 140 character cultural analysis on Twitter.

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7 Responses

  1. Bob says:

    “Policy-makers on the right should push to reform entitlements into safety nets for those who need them most: not the middle or upper class, but the working poor and the unemployed.”

    I’m waiting for that sort of sentiment to find expression in the Republican or Tea Party platforms. For that matter, the Democrats platform.

    Perhaps, if/when the poor start voting in large numbers something like that could happen. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.Report

  2. Drew says:

    David Frum really values American ” freedom and individualism “. WTF does that mean? Canada scores almost 2.5X the US. Frum is/was Canadian, so perhaps he can explain what the US offered him that made him come on down.Report

  3. Pat says:

    American freedom and individualism are important national values to be celebrated and defended.

    The whole fucking point of American freedom and individualism is social mobility. David Frum is a dumbass.Report

    • greginak in reply to Pat says:

      @Pat, Then you should be able to refer to the data provided to show why your point is correct. Since you didn’t do that why should anybody care about your name calling?Report

      • Pat in reply to greginak says:

        Wait, what? Did you once see someone in a comment bemoan a lack of data, and this seemed to vaguely apply here, along with some pearl-clutching?

        The data provided show low social mobility. I assert that Frum’s appeal to meaningless slogans of national character developed mostly from cigarette ads and post-war movies is in fact exactly the opposite of what the data suggest, in which case he’s writing like a disingenuous hack. The other alternative which I will conceded is that it is irrelevant. In which case he’s writing like a disingenuous hack.Report

  4. Bob says:

    Matt Yglesias had a few words on this subject about six months ago. He wrote,

    “The conservative view that the United States is the home par excellence [of social mobility] is interesting because I’m pretty sure it’s something they’re not lying about. It’s a source of genuine confusion. But as Matt [Zeitlin] says, it’s completely false….”

    Yglesias links to two studies, one from the Federal Reserve, the other from CAP, that indicate low levels of mobility. He concludes,

    “Still, the facts are the facts. The ex ante level of inequality in the United States makes social mobility hard, and we’re not doing anything like the kinds of investments in child nutrition, early education, etc. that could make up for it ex post.”

    http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/01/social-mobility-in-america/Report

  5. Koz says:

    “Part of the reason we have such inequity in the first place is that our social spending is overwhelmingly directed toward middle-class entitlements as opposed to spending directly on the poor. “

    That’s a very important point, something that should be emphasized more than it is. And a fairly recent state of affairs, at least in terms of the total history of the welfare state.

    But as far as the Right is concerned, the missing context is important. We were not able to defeat the health care bill, (which you supported IIRC). If we can’t or won’t or lack the political strength to do that, we have no prayer at what you’re suggesting.Report