Take it with a grain of salt, like all rankings I suppose. But the results are not surprising. It's about money. More about the lack of poverty than the presence of wealth I think. Story is from the Florida Times-Union, so the focus is on Northeast Florida. Link to full list in the story. Florida institute ranks St. Johns County as best for child well-being
Makes sense. The US has very low Wealth Mobility numbers for the free world. Only 12 spots better than Russia. You are where you were born. Ranked: The Social Mobility of 82 Countries
“Where” meaning finances not location? I was surprised when I read that a few years ago. Assumed we were much higher up the rankings. But I don't know that has anything to do with the ranking I posted. Even more mobile countries will have areas that have more poverty than others. I just thought the Florida country ranking was interesting.
The concept of social mobility can be deceptive. The more inequality, the less likely you are to move up percentiles. That’s just a mathematical likelihood. If government policy is to tax income/wealth heavily and have generous welfare, the wealth disparity will be depressed, and given the percentiles are much closer it’s easier to go up and down. For instance, one country could have a median of 5, with the top 10% being 50. Another country could have a median of 3, with the top 10% being 10. So the second country likely has more mobility because the numbers are closer. It’s easier to go from 3 to 10, vs 5 to 50. However the median person in the first country is better off with 5 vs 3. In a country where everybody was forced to make the same thing there would be near infinite mobility. But the median would be low because there is no incentive to work.
Not really. The number is driven by the masses as the bottom and whether they can pull themselves out of poverty or a low income level. Look at the top nations. They have strong social support and aren’t suffering from apathy. Denmark? In fact it’s really the opposite of what you layer out. If there was more opportunity for the bottom tiers we’d have so much more productivity.
I’m not denyng that having more resources at the bottom gives you a better chance to move up. I’m just saying it is easier to move up, when you don’t have as far to move. I found that graph you just posted laughable (not you, but the authors). I think it’s just saying if everybody were closer to the median the country would be more productive. Well of course. Fun with numbers. The graph will by definition be higher for countries with more inequality. What it doesn’t do is say anything about the current median productivity between country A and B. The whole premise seems to be the goal is for everybody to be equal, not to maximize the results for most people.
very doubtful. A graph does not = fact. Can you link the methodology? I recall the lost productivity due to weed use...Reagan liked to quote it. Many years later, I discovered that that academic research (from sociology) was nonsense. They surveyed people asking their income & whether they smoked weed & extrapolated from there.
From the same link, they have their methodology. “In fact” was meant as emphasis, not to claim any lordship over facts.
