What is the percentage of people

[deltex1]

who are intellectually capable, sufficiently driven, sufficiently confident, sufficiently focused, sufficiently willing to put in the effort, to rise from the "lower class" to the "middle class"? And what do you think is the most important ingredient in being able to make that move?

 

[ba1614]

who are intellectually capable, sufficiently driven, sufficiently confident, sufficiently focused, sufficiently willing to put in the effort, to rise from the "lower class" to the "middle class"? And what do you think is the most important ingredient in being able to make that move?

It all starts with the parenting, IMO. Teach kids to be self reliant and to not blame others for their own shortcomings or fuckups and chances are the kid will be all right.
Teach kids that they can do no wrong, they need government to wipe their ass, and they are doomed from the start.

 

[DiamondDave]

Everyone is capable of doing this.... BUT, with our current coddling and nurturing of an entitlement mantra, most have no intestinal fortitude to do it and would rather just complain and have others give them things

 

[zeke]

who are intellectually capable, sufficiently driven, sufficiently confident, sufficiently focused, sufficiently willing to put in the effort, to rise from the "lower class" to the "middle class"? And what do you think is the most important ingredient in being able to make that move?

The most important ingredient you ask? How about the availability of jobs paying middle class wages.

But we are not going to be building a larger middle class anytime soon.

What we will have is an upper class, a tradesman class (formerly known as the middle class) and then there will be the rest of the Americans. Getting by the best they can.
Unless they learn a trade or get enough of the right education to move to the upper class. And good luck with that.

But it won't be so bad. This division has existed before. Actually much longer than the idea the everyone can pull themselves up to the next level.

 

[deltex1]

I agree...my grand-daughter is in kindergarten and is one of the few that can read....in a middle class neighborhood in an "excellent" school district. (Thank you Grandma).

 

[deltex1]

who are intellectually capable, sufficiently driven, sufficiently confident, sufficiently focused, sufficiently willing to put in the effort, to rise from the "lower class" to the "middle class"? And what do you think is the most important ingredient in being able to make that move?

The most important ingredient you ask? How about the availability of jobs paying middle class wages.

But we are not going to be building a larger middle class anytime soon.

What we will have is an upper class, a tradesman class (formerly known as the middle class) and then there will be the rest of the Americans. Getting by the best they can.
Unless they learn a trade or get enough of the right education to move to the upper class. And good luck with that.


But it won't be so bad. This division has existed before. Actually much longer than the idea the everyone can pull themselves up to the next level.

Many say the jobs are there...no qualified applicants. As for the economy...go immediately for energy self sufficiency...it is there for the taking...the rest is "easy".

 

[rightwinger]

who are intellectually capable, sufficiently driven, sufficiently confident, sufficiently focused, sufficiently willing to put in the effort, to rise from the "lower class" to the "middle class"? And what do you think is the most important ingredient in being able to make that move?

A strong family structure

 

[Ernie S.]

who are intellectually capable, sufficiently driven, sufficiently confident, sufficiently focused, sufficiently willing to put in the effort, to rise from the "lower class" to the "middle class"? And what do you think is the most important ingredient in being able to make that move?

Probably 98% are intellectually capable. Significantly less are confident, focused and willing to put in the effort, and why should they be?

I've heard repeatedly that unions are responsible for building the middle class and the decline in private sector unionism is the reason the middle class is shrinking.
Bullshit! The middle class grew out of the incentive caused by hunger. Hunger during the depression gave people the drive, focus and willingness to feed themselves and their families. Success gave them confidence.

There are 2 reasons we see the middle class shrinking these days. #1 is the fact that many are being moved into the upper class either through exceptional success, or from having the boundaries moved.
#2 is they have moved into the lower class because they either lack incentive to work their or, again, the boundaries have again been artificially moved.
Hunger is the great motivator.

 

[Katzndogz]

While not everyone is capable of moving up, the primary motivating factor is pain. They aren't sufficiently motivated to move out of what we call poverty. Poverty is too comfortable. They have what they need. Now that needs are met, they are calling wants the pain of poverty. They don't need a new IPad, they want one. Now the want has become a need to be met because they are poor.

 

[Saigon]

I would say a strong family structure, but given we know that it is easier to rise economically in countries like Denmark, France and Germany, than clearly the societal structure is important, too.

What those countries do best is to invest in ALL children equally - and the result is upwards social mobility.

 

[Saigon]

In recent years several large studies have found that vertical inter-generational mobility is lower in the United States than in most developed countries.[11] A 1996 paper by Daniel P. McMurrer, Isabel V. Sawhill found "mobility rates seem to be quite similar across countries."[12] However a more recent paper (2007) found a person's parents is a great deal more predictive of their own income in the United States than other countries.[5] The United States had about 1/3 the ratio of mobility of Denmark and less than half that of Canada, Finland and Norway.[1] France, Germany, Sweden, also had higher mobility, with only the United Kingdom being less mobile.[1]

Economic mobility - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia