I even rent-to-owned a house to a family with 5 kids. This family would never have had the opportunity to own a house had I not given them that opportunity. They didn't have a high school diploma, no credit. Judgements against them. Criminal history. So I thought, "If they have the opportunity, will they take it to improve their life? If they have the opportunity to buy and own a home, will they make the most of it?"
They destroyed the house. They caused more damage than they paid in rent.
It isn't the lack of opportunity. I thought it was, but it isn't. Opportunities are external motivators. It takes internal motivation to succeed. You can't provide that to someone. They have to create it within themselves. It's the people who have that internal motivation who find opportunities and make the most of them.
Since this puts us way off the track of political correctness, I'll bring up what I consider the shining example of social mobility in the US: American Jews. I would argue that the Jewish community maximizes both economic opportunity and a variety of social pressures - on education, family, and community.
"We don't take steps to redress inequalities of looks, friends, or sex life. We don't grab a kidney from you to save someone's life, even though that health difference was unfair brute luck. Redistribution of wealth has some role in maintaining a stable democracy and preventing starvation. But the power of wealth redistribution to produce net value is quite limited. The power of wealth creation to produce net value is extraordinary. Most of America's poor are already among the best-off of all humans in world history. We should be putting our resources, including our advocacy and our intellectual resources, into wealth creation as much as we can." -Tyler Cowen
Considering what some rhetoricians label as "wealth redistribution", this is flat-out wrong. Consider socialized education, medicine, or early childhood education - all have shown to have strong impacts on social mobility, and hence, wealth creation.
This might be too subtle for a slogan, but it isn't rocket science, either: systems of smart wealth redistribution are absolutely necessary, although not sufficient, for maximum wealth creation. Also necessary, off the top of my head: social pressure for parents to be responsible, and a "path to prosperity" with which individuals can identify.
Evidence? Sources?
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi...
Early childhood education is found to produce persistent effects on achievement and academic success, but not on IQ . . . Cost-benefit analysis based on one randomized trial finds that the economic return from providing early education to children in poverty far exceeds the costs.
If it helps, here's one with more details: http://www.waisman.wisc.edu/cls/cbaexecsum4.html
Site with more details, including sample surveys etc: http://www.waisman.wisc.edu/cls/REPORTS.HTM
Conclusion: As the first cost-benefit analysis of a federally-financed, comprehensive early childhood intervention, findings indicate that participation in each component of the program was associated with economic benefits that exceeded costs. This was accomplished by increasing economic well being and reducing educational and social expenditures for remediation and treatment. Similar to Head Start, the CPC preschool program is the most intensive and comprehensive component and yielded the greatest benefits by age 21. Findings for school-age and extended intervention demonstrate the benefits of reduced class sizes and enriched school environments in the early grades. Thus, contemporary, large-scale child-development programs can provide substantial long-term benefits to society.
Google has many many studies that you can look at: http://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=effect+of+early+childhoo...
The effect of education on income is a subject that has been studied heavily. I'm sure that you can find studies that support many conclusions. But I think you will have trouble proposing that someone is making an unsupported claim when they say that education increases wealth and social mobility.
Edit: This doesn't mean you can't claim "I think that system X would achieve better results." It's not necessary to tear down the economic results that the American system has achieved in order to propose something that would work better in the future.
Well yes. And in general, the flaws are pretty gaping flaws. If you have studies with gaping methodological flaws, then you must completely disregard them. They are not evidence.
The study you cite about the CPC program, is majorly flawed. In general, the most astute parents figure out how to find their way into these types of programs. When you look at a more broad based program - like Head Start - the evidence effectiveness does not seem to be exist or be enough to stand out from the noise ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_Start#Reports_and_statemen... )
But I think you will have trouble proposing that someone is making an unsupported claim when they say that education increases wealth and social mobility.
I dispute it. If you want to play the social science game, check out this article: http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/does-education-really-...
Despite dramatically increasing the amount we spend on education, and the time spent in school, basic measures of vocabulary and math have been flat over the last century.
But I don't like playing the social science game.
The real reason I don't believe schooling increases national wealth is because I got a topflight education. But after a private high school and an ivy league college, neither I nor virtually any of my friends learned much in the way of wealth-creating skills. I earn a much higher than average income, but its all because of self-taught skills.
After spending some time in the workforce, I've noticed the vast majority of people learn their wealth producing skills on the job. This is the norm now, it was the norm fifty years ago, and it was the norm one hundred fifty years ago. It applies to machinists and it applies to software engineers. The only difference is that we are so rich now, we can afford to waste hundreds of billions of dollars on formal schooling.
If people who graduate college earn more, it must because of some other affect ( selection effects, zero-sum credentialing laws, or because of social networks). I know this must be the case, because I knows what happens in schools, and I know that outside of engineering (which is a tiny minority of all majors) college does not teach wealth producing skills.
The claim is that going to college somehow increases your chances of being successful. I.e. that it sets you on the right path to becoming successful. How could this be? Could be that it teaches you something useful (problem solving, the ability to power through difficult assignments, etc...) that is necessary in a lot of jobs.
I worked for a company before where they didn't necessarily hire people with CS degrees or backgrounds. They just hired smart people and taught them what was necessary. Some people would claim that these people were smart enough to do this because of their college education.
Note: I'm not necessarily sure that college does make you smarter in a relevant way. As has been pointed out, most of the studies have bad methodology and anecdotal evidence is not sufficient to prove a point. So all we can do here is lay out theories .
It's should also be noted that average heights were about 4 inches shorter than the height of a modern American. Not having good enough nutrition to reach a full height seems like a pretty sure sign of poverty to me.
They did not so much have the crowded slums that are typical of modern poverty. People would die of disease before cities could reach such densities. But relative to us, people were impoverished in terms of health, nutrition, or material comfort.
EDIT:
One more point. Overall violent death rates ( including war and homicide) in 16th-19th century Britain were about the same as the violent death rate in modern Houston, Texas. See Greg Clark, A Farewell to Alms, pages 128-129.
You realize most of the world would think this is abnormally high?