> "Teach your kids more at home. Be more involved with them. Teach them to take responsibility. Don’t do silly degrees that cost huge student loans. Do more STEM. Start a small business. Eat better food. Exercise."
Wow, I'm glad you have the program down for all the low income people. Why don't they pick themselves up by their bootstraps (which, incidentally, is physically impossible).
> Teach kids at home
Assumes your parents are educated and have time. Neither of my parents passed the 10th grade. What were they supposed to teach me precisely?
> Be more involved with them
Hard to do when my parents worked jobs and had to rely on public transportation and/or bicycles to get to work. Hard to be really involved with your kid when you continually face 12+ days just to make slightly-above minimum wage
> Teach them to take responsibility
What does this even mean? "Sure little Johnny. That company says you weren't a 'culture add.' Now take responsibility, internalize that and... do whatever it is that would make you a culture add. Who knows?"
> "Don’t do silly degrees that cost huge student loans."
Hi there. I get paid 6 figures at a FAANG and I triple majored in liberal arts. It's not that degrees are 'silly.' It's that business has a narrow view of what's important.
My team is full of people with Master's degrees. Other than the military vets, I'm the only person without a master's degree. They all ask me how I quickly diagnose problems.
Pro tip: It's because my silly bachelor's taught me how to critically think and synthesize disparate pieces of information into a coherent whole. Their 'prestigious' degrees taught them how to write C++ and Java. Neither of those skills are useful on my team.
> "Do more STEM"
Not everyone does well in STEM, nor does tech require a heavy STEM background. Also, it's a little difficult to get help on trigonometry when your parents are under educated.
> "Start a small business."
Creating small businesses take time and money. So does your 'Teach your kids more' and 'be more involved with them'. Where are you going to find all this extra time?
Not to mention you have to have some cushion failures in business. If you don't have generational wealth (which people who go to HBCU's typically don't), creating a small business is a perilous enterprise that can ruin you easier than it can pull you out of poverty.
> "Eat better food"
Takes more money (non-processed food is by in large more expensive) and time (non-processed food has to be cooked). So that's 4 things that take more time.
> "Exercise"
The fifth thing that takes more time.
---
Where are low income families supposed to get all this extra time when they're spending most of their time simply trying to make it to the next paycheck?
This advise may make a good self-help book. You might even make a bit of money (see how successful Dale Carnegie got with his tripe!). But simple fix ignores the realities of growing up in a generationaly poor family with under-educated parents.