Tag Archives: poverty rate

Let’s Teach Our Children To Be Successful

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On November 21, The NC Family Policy Council posted an article about the keys to help our young people become successful adults.

The article notes:

While some of these trends have been beneficial (I’m personally a fan of working remotely), not all of these have been good for our society. Many of the values that the parents of these two generations have tried to pass on have instead been tossed to the wayside. Principles like the importance of getting a good education, waiting until marriage to have children, or getting a good job have been ignored more and more.

While the long-lasting impacts of these lifestyle changes are yet to be seen, researchers Wendy Wang and Brad Wilcox have confirmed that these “traditional” values are actually beneficial for individuals, giving them the information to build what they’ve termed the “Success Sequence.”

The Success Sequence

The report from Wang and Wilcox states that Millennials are most likely to live an economically successful life and avoid poverty if they follow these three steps:

    1. Graduate from high school or get a GED by their mid-twenties;
    2. Work full time;
    3. Marry before having children.

This sounds an awful lot like what my generation was told growing up. Here’s the evidence for their model:

    • 97% of Millennials who follow this sequence are not poor when they reach adulthood. The link remains strong when this cohort of young Americans reaches their mid-30s.
    • 94% of young adults from lower-income families who followed the success sequence are not poor.
    • 95% of young adults from non-intact families who followed the success sequence are not poor.
    • The poverty gap between college and high school graduates is small among those who followed the success sequence.

Correcting For Disadvantages

What is interesting is that this works across all of the variables that are often cited as reasons for people to be economically disadvantaged, including race, gender, parents’ low economic status, not receiving a college degree, and being from a non-intact family. The poverty rate for adults between the ages of 32 and 38 after completing each step is well under 10%, even for those experiencing the disadvantages mentioned above.

These are the values the parents of the baby boomers taught their children and grandchildren. It’s time to go back to those values.

The article includes a video summary:

The Numbers Tell The Story

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On Wednesday, Just the News posted an article about some recently-released Census Data.

The article reports:

As he heads into the final stretch of the election, President Trump is getting a boost from new census data showing historic, broad-based economic gains for U.S. households in 2019.

The U.S. Census Bureau on Monday released data showing median household income surging to a record high of more than $68,700 last year. The increase of 6.8% in household income was the largest one-year increase on record.

The poverty rate, meanwhile, fell to 10.5% last year, a record low, with 4.2 million Americans lifted out of poverty last year, the largest decrease in poverty since 1966.

The article notes:

Median household incomes for African-Americans, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans all hit record highs last year, along with a record-high median income for women. The income gains for blacks, Hispanics, and Asian-Americans were all one-year record increases. According to the Council of Economic Advisers, “the poverty rate fell to an all-time record low for every race and ethnic group in 2019,” and the child poverty rate hit a 50-year low.

At the White House, Trump noted that the new census data showed income inequality has fallen over the last two years. He noted that COVID-19 presented challenges during 2020 to American households but predicted a robust economic recovery, which to date has exceeded many economists’ forecasts.

I guess those ‘tax cuts for the rich’ didn’t only help the rich!

One of the ways that people who support socialism move a country in the direction of socialism is to eliminate the middle class. In a socialist county, the ruling class is extremely wealthy and everyone else lives in poverty. Many of our political leaders have been moving America in that direction for years. One of the reasons for the irrational hatred directed at President Trump is that he is reversing that trend–thus he is a threat to their power and ultimate plan. Many of our political and media elites really do not have the best interests of the average America at heart. They are interested in their own success and really don’t care about doing things that will benefit the rest of us.