New study finds most Americans don’t care about inequality | Hacker News Reader

New study finds most Americans don’t care about inequality

qz.com

31 pointsmgh236 comments

The stories are misleading about the report.

Here's a link to the actual report: https://www.rwjf.org/content/dam/farm/reports/surveys_and_po...

Some questions from the survey:

Q10. Do you think income differences between the rich and the poor in the U.S. today are a very serious problem, somewhat serious problem, not too serious problem, or not a problem at all?

Very serious problem 43% Somewhat serious problem 28% Not too serious problem 13% Not a problem at all 15%

Q11. Do you think income differences between the rich and the middle class in the U.S. today are a very serious problem, somewhat serious problem, not too serious problem, or not a problem at all?

Very serious problem 35% Somewhat serious problem 29% Not too serious problem 17% Not a problem at all 17%

The headline is pretty much the exact opposite of what the survey says, which is that the majority feel these are serious problems.

I do think the study authors deserve some blame here. Inexplicably, they chose to frame the results in this way: "fewer than half of adults across all income categories say they think income differences between the rich and the poor or between the rich and the middle-class are very serious problems in the U.S. today." The focus exclusively on "very serious problem" ignores their own categories, which also include "somewhat serious problem". When only 15% believe it's not a problem at all, why would you focus just on one narrowly worded category? Fully 85% percent admit it's a problem. That's a far cry from "don't care".

I also don't get the obsession with income, it's wealth that matters. People might simply say think massive income inequality isn't a problem because instead they think massive wealth inequality is the real problem.

Typically the problem is called "income equality". If it used "wealth inequality", it may confuse some. There's often a tradeoff between accuracy and brevity and/or clarity when writing surveys.

Whether a majority agree it’s a serious problem depends on whether you think “somewhat serious” is “serious” or not. If I answer there are “somewhat serious” problems, you can’t just round that up to “serious” because that word is present.

If the categories were “serious, moderate, mild, and not a problem”, which I’d argue are semantically equivalent to the survey categories, then it’s clearly an error for the headline to be written as “majority agree income inequality is a serious problem.”

> If the categories were “serious, moderate, mild, and not a problem”, which I’d argue are semantically equivalent to the survey categories

I don't think changing the wording would help. The basic problem is that these terms are all vague. What we really need is a comparison and/or ranking with other problems.

Clearly, though, under any definition, "don't care" is flat out wrong.

Nice recap. I'd assume the answer to your question lies in the sponsors of this study and the continued funding of the authors' future work.

The title is a bit misleading, so here is what NPR published:

“Despite these challenges, a majority of adults across the income spectrum say the American Dream is still alive and within reach. The vast majority of parents and grandparents across all income groups also believe future generations will achieve it.

In fact, a majority across all income groups do not believe the gap between the poorest and richest Americans is a very serious problem.

Hard work stands out as a “very important” factor for achieving economic success across all income groups. And while research shows how much social factors like family income, neighborhood and race are tied to economic mobility, fewer than four in ten adults across all income groups believe these play an essential or very important role in economic success in America today.”

Eliminate British Territorial taxes and it becomes even easier to achieve.

America is 27th in the Global Social Mobility Index. The propaganda that you can "work hard and succeed" is no longer working, especially for the youngest generations.

They're seeing that America is becoming a third-world nation with pockets of wealth. And they realize that if we don't start caring about inequality and mobility, it will just get worse.

You're using a rank of 27th out of almost 200 countries to make the claim that America is a third world country? We're in the top tranche in terms of socio-economic mobility and you're trying to spin that as loss?

Sure we could do better, but providing better mobility than 80-90% of the world is not exactly horrible.

It's out of 82 here and it's nearly at the bottom of the industrialized nations.

Also I said it's becoming a third world country.

Essentially all of the "mobility" metrics are case studies in the 3 types of lying- "lies, damned lies and statistics"

In many Northern/Western European countries, wages are very compressed around the median, such that relatively small changes in income can move a person from one quintile to another. Unsurprisingly, these countries will show lots of mobility- in the US you might need to go from parents at $30k to child making $100k to have the same "mobility" as a Scandinavian family going from $40k to $50k between generations.

You dislike the numbers so you literally make up numbers in response? It doesn't work that way.

Calling it lies because European counties have a middle class is crazy. Having a middle-class is an incredibly important part of mobility. Nearly 70 percent of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings. A huge portion of America's citizens are living paycheck-to-paycheck and have no way out.

Have you been to Scandinavia? No homeless. No destitute poverty. No one is defecating on the streets like they do in San Francisco. There's a big problem here and hand-waving it away because you don't want to look at it won't help.

Alas, homelessness and povery exist in the Nordic countries as well. It's much less common herr than in many other places, but there is definitely a lot of people with large debts, living paycheck to paycheck.

Sure. I didn't mean that as in actually zero cases. I mean, go to Portland and then go to Oslo. Go to Philly and then go to Copenhagen. The difference is night-and-day.

Definitely, but in the larger scale of things, Copenhagen is filled to the brink with overvalued buildings financed with zero-interest loans. If the interest rates start going up, the bubble is going to burst and a _lot_ of people are going to end up on the street ("the street" being used as a metaphor for a situation where there's no stable living situation).

Denmark and Sweden have managed to keep their housing bubbles intact for now, but I suspect the financial troubles brought on by the pandemic might change the situation quite radically the coming 6 months if the EU don't manage to secure vaccine availability and get the ball rolling.

> If the interest rates start going up, the bubble is going to burst and a _lot_ of people are going to end up on the street

Yeah, I hear you. That's the whole world, though. Here in the US, too, interest rates are prohibited from rising or it's Armageddon.

> Nearly 70 percent of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings.

That is an obviously false assertion. Per the US BLS, the median household has ~$1,000 leftover each month after all ordinary expenses. It takes quite a bit of credulity to assert that households making >$100,000 per year have no money saved up in the US on average.

You are almost certainly citing one of the long discredited sources that define “savings” as “money in a savings account”. Savings accounts are an anachronism, most people don’t even have one because they don’t serve a purpose. The only people that make this claim anymore are pushing an agenda, that it is blatantly misleading has been pointed out for many years yet people still insist and repeating it.

> obviously false assertion

Maybe you need to spend time outside of your gated community and get your data from multiple sources. The BLS numbers are not handed down from God and can be wrong.

This survey below, for example, (which they do every year and remains consistent) shows that around 60% of Americans would not be able to pay an unexpected $1,000 expense:

https://www.bankrate.com/banking/savings/financial-security-...

You decide to cite an advertisement for savings accounts that defines "savings" as having a savings account? Americans don't have savings accounts because they serve no purpose, it doesn't imply they can't pay an emergency expense. Furthermore, the survey asked how they would pay, not if they could pay.

That's like saying most Americans don't have a means of transportation because you've defined "means of transportation" as "owns a horse".

If you actually look at US Federal Reserve data, instead of advertisements, the percentage of Americans without the means to pay an unexpected expense is around 13%.

It's not an advertisement and it's not about "savings account." It specifically uses wording to avoid that.

CNN: Only 39% of Americans can afford a $1,000 emergency expense

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/11/success/1000-emergency-expens...

CNN is literally citing the previous content marketing piece you posted. Are all your citations circular, to the same article that is encouraging people to put their extra cash in useless savings accounts? The vast majority of Americans keep their extra cash in a checking account for convenience, and less commonly a money market account, all of which is explicitly excluded from "savings" in that article. Savings accounts only profit the banks, people don't have a use for one these days.

Meanwhile, you ignore US Federal Reserve surveys, US BLS statistics, etc that are detailed, authoritative, and provide the basis for most economic modeling. Probably because they obviously and transparently contradict your assertion in considerable detail.

> US Federal Reserve data ... around 13%.

No, it's 37%. And they can't pay an unexpected expense of $400. They have no data on $1000.

https://www.federalreserve.gov/publications/2020-economic-we...

You continue to accuse me of not being objective when you are the one who refuses to go outside your door or look out your window. Poverty is endemic in America. Period.

Is there something wrong with Lithuania and Portugal that it is so bad to be next to them in some world ranking? I get tired of the thinking that if the USA is not "#1 best in the entire history of the world" in these global rankings then we're some kind of abysmal losers.

Sorry! No disrespect intended.

They both just have a lower GDP and one might think that America with its higher stated GDP could do better. I apologize and have removed it.

27th of 100+ countries? So like, the top 25%?

Almost at the bottom of the industrialized nations. Trying to spin it as a "near-win" is disingenuous. America is closer to Kazakhstan than it is to Germany or France.

I mean, GP said America was becoming a third world country. If you look at the list, it's pretty clear that second world (former Soviet) countries generally have higher social mobility than third world countries but still lesser than the United States. I wasn't trying to spin a near win - just objecting to hyperbole.

I don't think "second world" is really used and saying "former soviet" nations means nothing. In the 30 years since that change, nations have developed so differently that it doesn't add much to group them together.

That said, I see your point. Please note that I said America is "becoming" a third world country and did not say "already is".

>I don't think "second world" is really used

The (or a) point, I think, of bringing up "second world" is that if you use the term "third world", one is essentially importing that context. If you don't like "second world" you shouldn't use "third world".

In denigrating the US, "developing world/country" is not going to work because it isn't pejorative enough. But "third world" is outdated.

My stock conservative answer is, "I am concerned that there be equality of opportunity but not that there be equality of outcome." But that isn't really true. I am concerned about income inequality to the extent that it shows that the economy is broken to some extent.

I am not an economist, but it seems to me there do need to be some levers that can rebalance the system more in favor of labor, as opposed to capital. That would perhaps include the strengthening of labor unions, more taxpayer support of public universities, more skilled labor apprenticeship programs. Maybe then young people would be able to own homes without working multiple jobs.

The actual survey is nowhere to be found at that foundations website, does someone have a direct link to it?

Edit; https://www.rwjf.org/content/dam/farm/reports/surveys_and_po...

It seems to me, this is an issue with survivorship bias[1], it is easier to notice person who was nearly homeless and then becomes successful, then most people within a community who have to deal with daily struggle of making ends meet.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias

I wonder if conservatives and progressives would give significantly different answers. It appears they asked political affiliation category, but I didn't see it worked into any summary stats related to "inequality". Maybe if I get the raw data in CSV I can do that myself in MS-Access or Excel.

It's hard to imagine anyone with real power is going to look at this study and think "Ohhhhh man, not having enough money really is a problem!"

Here are the "key highlights" of the study [1]:

- Income matters to health care

- Medical bills are a big burden

- Housing is unaffordable for many

- Food insecurity is a serious problem

- Health concerns vary by income

So tldr - not having enough money can make life hard. I guess this report is helpful in that it gives a real source of data to support arguments that wealth inequality is a problem, but does anyone really not know that already?

[1]: https://www.rwjf.org/en/library/articles-and-news/2019/12/su...

> but does anyone really not know that already?

Yes, probably the majority of Americans do not know it as a fact, and any facts are filtered through their own cultural lens. But more importantly, they are simply preoccupied with cultural war over economic or class war. People are much more concerned with whether liberals or conservatives are ruining the country, than whether the 1% are keeping them all poor. Political and cultural propaganda has been wildly successful here.

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