by Metiria Turei
The Ministry for Social Development has put its NZ Living Standards 2008 report on to its website.
The NZ Herald reported it, highlighting that
the Labour Government’s Working for Families package cut the number of children in hardship from 26 per cent in 2004 to 19 per cent four years later. But this is still a much higher hardship rate than any other group. The next-highest hardship rate, an unchanged 14 per cent, is for people aged 25 to 44, who include most of the children’s parents.
The background paper to the survey taken in October last year says:
the hardship rate for sole parent families is around 4 times that for those in two parent families (39% and 11% respectively) beneficiary families with dependent children have a hardship rate of around 5 times that for working families with children (51% and 11% respectively… sole parent families in work have a hardship rate (20%) well below that for sole parent beneficiary families (54%) Maori and Pacific people have hardship rates some 2 to 3 times that of those in the European or Other ethnic groups
Which really means that while Working For Families helped to lift the poverty level for a large number of working people and their children, hardship for beneficiaries and their children remain at critical levels. The children who have missed out are those whose families who rely on benefits. Susan St John of Child Poverty Action has written on this very recently, describing as an example the In Work Tax Credit:
… the In Work Tax Credit has two objectives – to encourage sole parents to work and to reduce child poverty. It is exceptionally expensive at $590 million annually, and is paid not just to those earning the minimum wage but way up the income scale to those earning over $100,000 annually. Yet the design of this expensive package excludes the poorest 200,000 children whose poverty has been left to deepen.
At a time of increasing unemployment, more and more children will find themselves in severe hardship with a minister who would rather attack their families than help.
We know from the Children’s Social Health monitor released late last year, that New Zealand’s benefit provisions are unlikely to protect a large proportion of our children from severe or significant hardship in the short and medium term future. These children deserve better. Even the Tax Working Group reported that a universal child allowance would help to relieve some of the worst poverty, a measure promoted by the Greens and rejected by Labour.
Next week Key will make some announcements about the coming tax reform in the address in reply debate in Parliament. We need to see urgent action to eliminate the massive inequality and the severe hardship that thousands of New Zealand children suffer simply because of the income source of their parents. That’s not fair, it never was and never will be. Our kids urgently need better.
Published in Economy, Work, & Welfare by Metiria Turei on Wed, February 3rd, 2010
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
Obviously if the minimum wage was increased and this assisted upward wage movement in the $15-20 band there would be savings to government from reduced WFF tax credit eligibility and reduced accommodation supplement costs – money that could finance an increase in those child tax credits available to all parents.
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Oh, this just fits in the picture. See other news from today here: http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2010/02/kicking-deaf.html
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umm, SPC,
the point of the majority of this post is that only subsidising employers by making allowances available to underpaid workers, isn’t working for most of the children being raised in conditions of hardship – because their parent doesn’t have a job.
This is only going to get worse, as the recession deepens and those working part-time or on casual contracts lose their jobs first.
Creating situations where one socioeconomic class are consistently deprived of assistance only succeeds in embedding deprivation, and creating resentment, particularly in provincial areas where housing and food may be cheaper, but at the cost of access to employment.
Especially if other, interlocking policies also remove services like health and education support from the same communities.
Child Poverty Action have been quoting figures hovering around 1 in 3 children nationally are being brought up under conditions of hardship, for several years now, in criticism of the WFF policies.
This tends to mean that in any school, at whatever decile level, teachers are dealing with some children who don’t come to school with lunch, or haven’t had breakfast before they arrive; factors which impair learning, even with the most motivated of teaching.
There’s no point trumpeting a policy of keeping kids in school longer, if the kids we’re keeping can barely find the energy to concentrate on their classes. This is where our appalling statistics for intergenerational poverty begin – with childhood deprivation.
Break that cycle by improving food security in low-income households, and there’ll be less ‘unemployable’ youth spilling into the job market each year.
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Hidden due to low comment rating. Click here to see.
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katie
And you cannot see how support for a minimum wage increase reduces need to provide tax credits to workers and consequent from this these tax credits can be shared out to other families by increasing those tax credits which are universal … ?
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Katie, it’s obviously not your fault, but in this country, that prides itself on feeding the world, it’s beyond me how anyone can be short of food. (Yes, I know the reasons, but …)
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SPC -
tax credits are not ‘universal’, they make no difference to the income of beneficiaries, as my first paragraph above stated.
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katie, I clearly distinguished between WFF tax credits and other tax credits (there is nore than one kind of existing child tax credit) which ARE paid to beneficiaries. Beneficiary income does include child tax credits, these are the ones paid to both those with working parents and those with parents on benefits. Thes could be increased if there were savings in WFF costs (as would occur if minimum wage levels were increased).
IMO it makes more sense to increase existing child tax credits available TO ALL/UNIVERSALLY “low income families” than bring in a universal child tax credit paid to all families as proposed by the tax policy group.
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Hmm.
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Solve the problem instead of using stop-gaps. Provide free education at all sub-tertiary levels. Provide food in schools. Provide boarding school for the really bad off. If the parent can not support themselves with the child in boarding school and job or the UB then let them rot in their failure.
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Subsidies are not the fix as much as people want them. It all boils down to employment numbers and education. Once parents have an education and job the income goes up and are able to feed their families. The parents need incentives to get employed and get an education, not a subsidy. You would think that seeing starving children would do the trick.
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Sapient – we are talking about 20% of children, there are no places to send all of them too, without massive capital expense and on-going cost.
Free food in schools involves higher universal cost when 80% of children do not need the subsidy of their parents.
Free schooling for all involves uniform costs, subsidy of school donations and compulsory cost fees which we currently do not afford.
Just because all that extra funding does not go to beneficiary parents does not make it affordable.
For much less, direct help to parents we can reduce child poverty.
Your objection is that
1. some parents might not use the money well – that can be overcome by oversight, where there is cause.
2. you prefer a society where those who fail suffer their punishment, because you belive in negative incentives – economic deprivation suffering for the weaker employment units. In this you ignore policy to maintain unemployment, keep benefits low, insist on onerous work-tests and the consequent reality that this results in low wages for those jobs the unemployed could move into (undermining collective bargaining) – which without appropriate minimum wage levels requires such policy as WFF.
It is simpler and more affordable to increase beneficiary incomes – most preferable is to provide part-time work to them and increase the amount they can earn before abatement kicked ($80 increased to at least $120 – a days work at $15 or two half days). Until this can be arranged allowing those child tax credits beneficiaries receive to be increased while the WFF tax credit was frozen/increased (costs reduced by increasing the minimum wage) is the most cost effective way to reduce child poverty.
In the end it’s a debate about how the extra help is given. Directly via tax credits or via extra benefit supplements for specific need (and providing this for the intended purpose). The latter has extra delivery costs – the price some would pay to help children more directly rather than do so trusting “underclass/undeserving” parents. The only thing is any women at home, or in a job which would not provide enough for childcare, is only one broken marriage away from raising her children in that same poverty.
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SPC and katie – you both make valid points, so how about a mix of what you propose:
1) Increase the minimum wage to $15 an hour.
2) Universalise the In Work Tax Credit into a Universal Family Benefit payable at a rate of $60 a week to all families (this would extend it to beneficiary families but provide reduced assistance for working families with 4 or more children).
3) Increase the rate of the Family Tax Credit (which abates far more rapidly than the In Work Tax Credit) for the fourth and subsequent children to help offset the loss of the In Work Tax Credit for large low income families.
This would assist the families (both beneficiary and low income workers) in the greatest poverty, while reducing assistance to those on higher incomes (currently a family with six children and an income of $120,000 a year gets $105 in In Work Tax Credit – that would drop to $60 Universal Family Benefit).
It would also provide a universal entitlement that could be capitalised to provide a deposit for home ownership.
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toad
I have reservations about 2.
There is an alternative to capitalising a “universal benefit” to provide a deposit on a house.
The problem of home ownership affordability is the rising value of land, more than the value of the historic building and its replacement cost. Why not the government providing a deposit to first home buyers with families and in return the state owns the land the house is built on?
{The advantage is one of charging a lease on the land based on the owners ability to pay – even if repayments were low for awhile, while the owners was paying the mortgage cost on the house itself, there might be offsetting accommodation supplement savings).
It’s a way to go beyond state housing in ensuring we have families continuing to live in their own homes (which reduces the business of private landlords and associated speculative investment in the housing market).
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State-sponsored child breeding programs for poor youth. Who ever imagined that would end in disaster.
About time we changed the incentives, don’t you think?
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Incentives is a word used to exacerbate market forces so the poor get poorer and the rich get richer. It is also a way of rationalising political power and privilege being kept in the hands of the few, not the many.
The blue rinse class war on the poor continues – it really should stay on kiwiblog. You come here merely to bait, not to debate.
You know most on welfare are people who have lost jobs or partners or who are on SB or IB, but you continue to infer that all these people and their dependent children should be in poverty rather than there be some incentive to someone to join them in poverty without working (and the irony is you support a low minimum wage – where a rising one is a real incentive to work). To you incentives is word for taking support away from the poor and tax cuts for others, never a word for raising the incomes of hard-working low wage poor New Zealanders and their families.
Cheap, mean and nasty describes our level of support to the poor and the attitudes of those who insist this continues.
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tayllor
1. Are people on SB and IB able to work?
2. Are people on the DPB able to afford childcare?
3. If there is a policy to maintain unemployment as part of managing inflation, there will be people unemployed with children to support – and no matter how motivated everyone is some will still be without work.
For too many, your “incentive to work of their child being in poverty” does not result in their being able to work or being able to afford childcare, or being motivated to work does not result in being in work.
This government has cut the TIA (a hand up to those on the DPB to afford access into tertiary edcuation) and is also yet to increase the income beneficiaries can earn before abatement kicks in – even though this is their stated policy. A matter of priorities I suppose.
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Incentives are factors that enable or motivate.
We should provide a minimum living standard. We should provide targeted assistance for children based on well-being of that child.
Many on welfare and low incomes cannot be trusted to do what is right for their children, as our pathetic child abuse statistics demonstrate. Only hand money to people who can demonstrated they can look after their children, and stop handing it to people who don’t. They don’t deserve children. The need close monitoring and micro-management. Stop incentivising people to breed children they don’t want.
This monumentally stupid left experiment has failed. We’ve had over fifty years of no-fault welfare and it hasn’t solved a damn thing. We still have poor, we still have high abuse rates.
Isn’t it time we stopped repeating a failed experiment and try something else?
With rights should come responsibility. Why do we forget the second part?
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SPC – you’re right – incentives can make the poor get poorer. Like if you can get hundreds of dollars of other people tax for doing very little, some people are incentivised to do nothing.
40% of people contribute nothing to the tax take now.
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photonz
Now you are using incentives to attack those whose wages are not enough to provide for their families.
As I said the word is part of the language of a campaign to increase the disparity of income and wealth in a society – on those standings we already have some of the best incentives in the world. It’s just the interference of continuing to have a minimum wage, a welfare system and WFF which prevents us from being outright world champions in the field. So extremists on the right argue the case for such change, to normalise the poverty in our society as something necessary to maintain the right signals.
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Poverty, in NZ, is what happens when you make a series of bad decisions.
Don’t earn enough to support two children? Oh, I know! Let’s have five!
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If only it were that simple BP. The evidence doesn’t support your simple answer, but it does support inequality as a fairly simple explanation and a fairly simple solution.
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Minimum wage for a single adult is, what, around $500 p/w?
That’s enough for room, board, entertainment and a little saving.
Not extravagant, but it’s hardly scavenging in a rubbish dump, is it.
With some extra time and money invested in training, that wage increases to a more comfortable level.
Or you could leave school, pop out two kids, and let the neighbors pay for it all for 20 years.
Then complain about being poor. Well duh.
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Welfare was never intended to end need, but provide for those in need.
It’s impossible to end illness and injury (IB and SB) – soon (because of the rising age till Super and the aging of the boomers) these numbers will both be above UB rates. We will always have Super. It’s also impossible to end unemployment or single parenthood.
It’s not a valid arguement to say that welfare has failed, because need persists. Welfare is to provide for those in need and ending that need is not possible.
“Many on welfare and low incomes cannot be trusted to do what is right for their children, as our pathetic child abuse statistics demonstrate.”
Too many, but not most, only some. There is no monopoly on child abuse by parents supported by benefits and it is wrong to suggest that.
“Only hand money to people who can demonstrated they can look after their children, and stop handing it to people who don’t.”
Why presume parents are unfit until they prove otherwise simply based on need for welfare – discrimination based on employment status (Human Rights Act) or would you also assess parents receiving a tax credit as well (the majority of parents)? Presume all but a few parents on higher incoes were not trustworthy in raising up children?
“Stop incentivising people to breed children they don’t want.”
You would punish over 150,000 parents (more on WFF) because some teens (say 5000 at most) who don’t rate their chance of getting a job might see the DPB as a way of being provided for. Hardly accurate targeting.
Why not simply provide an educational support for these at risk people and job opportunity and then make sure a reasonable level of minimum wage acts as their incentive (it is a lot more than a benefit).
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spc – say we are “outright world champions in the field” of disparity of income.
What utter nonsense. Our richest 10% earn 12.5 x our lowest 10%.
vs – Brazil 51 x, Argentina 41 x, South Africa 33 x, Chile 33 x, Malaysia 22 x, Hong Kong 17 x, Singapore 17 x, USA 16 x, Portugal 15 x, United Kingdon 14 x, Israel 13 x, Namibia 128 x, Bolivia 168 x, Mexico 24 x, Australia (same as NZ).
If you live in the following countries there you would have much LOWER difference between lowest and highest income –
Ethiopia 6x, Vietnam 7 x, India 8 x, Yemen 8 x, Mongolia 8 x, Egypt 8x, Pakistan 6 x. etc.
We are far from world champions at income disparity – more like very average.
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We have people who can’t afford to have more children, but do anyway.
They are supported by other people who also can’t afford to have more children, so stop. But end up paying for more children anyway – someone elses.
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photonz
Why did you not provide a quote of what I actually wrote …
I will provide it for you – now what relationship, if any, does it have to what you claimed?
10.38 am
It’s just the interference of continuing to have a minimum wage, a welfare system and WFF which prevents us from being outright world champions in the field.
Now if we had no minimum wage, welfare system or WFF what would our disparity of income and wealth THEN be?
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photonz
Clearly we are equal to Oz, only while we have WFF, if we got rid of WFF and cut the top rate of tax we would increase from 12.5 past Israel UK and Portugal and perhaps reach the USA and the top of the OECD in income disparity.
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Sorry SPC – I misread you quote.
However my point is valid – that we are right in the middle of on the scorecard of income disparity. Many countries who are “above” us with less disparity, are there for the reason that EVERYONE is poor.
Even if you don’t work and just sit at home in NZ, you still get given enough money from taxpayers to eat well, buy clothes, live in a house, have a tv, or even sky tv, perhaps a car, have your kids schooled, and access to a reasonable health system.
I could live off benefits today with a higher standard of living than my family had when I was a child, with a father in full time employment on an average wage.
The minimum wage is even better.
We do have a serious issue with much of NZ being financially illiterate.
Fixing that would probably have far greater benefits, and be much easier, than trying to force increased wages from businesses who are struggling just to survive the year.
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Photonz – far from being ‘about average’ in the inequality stakes, why not compare us to those we are most comparable to – the wealthier nations. We don’t fare too well. Only the USA, Portugal and the UK are worse among the OECD folk.
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SPC – I don’t beleive in communisim so I don’t think place as much importance on income disparity.
If I work twice the hours of someone else who does the same work, why shouldn’t I earn twice as much. Unfortunately that can never happen, as the more I work, the more I get taken away.
If you look at income disparity rankings, there are plenty of poor countries with low disparity, and realtively wealthy countries with high disparity.
What’s more important is
a/ having basic living needs covered by benefits or minimum wages.
b/ having opportunities to learn, train, and work up the ladder, for those who have the initiative.
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Disparity is communist nonsense. We should provide a base level – which we already do – where people can live and eat and be educated.
If you put in more work and/or make more right decisions, you deserve to keep the rewards that go with that. If you’re able bodied and of sound mind, and you’re poor, it’s because you make bad decisions in respect to earning and saving more.
Live with your decisions, don’t expect others to bail you out all the time.
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SPC – that’s skewing things.
That’s like taking the top 10% of wealthiest countries in the world, and saying NZ is one of the poorest.
Or you can say we are in the top 10% of the whole world.
Previously you were comparing us to the rest of the world, in which case we compared ok. Now to make it seem much worse, you’re excluding 90% of the world and comparing us only to wealthiest 10% in the world – almost all much richer countries than NZ..
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If kids are really suffering it is because of drop kick parents.
The answer is simple, take away the benefit, take away the DPB and replace them with vouchers.
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Photonz
Economic research indicates that income disparity is an economic growth problem.
Of nations in the OECD we are 4th in income disparity and we have a sustainable economic growth problem. Portugal is not an economic success and as for USA and the UK, they are both in economic decline, possibly the consequences flowing through from their Thatcher and Reaganite reforms (which increased income disparity and since a growing disparity of wealth as well). In the UK the equal opportunity for all in realising common outcomes is now less than it was back in the 1950′s.
Linked to income diparity is a common problem with economic incentives – they tend to result in both wealth disparity and a disconnect between capital and workforce production. As in the USA and UK and New Zealand, at least in the housing sector, wealth became alienated from workforce production – speculation in assets and financial instruments rather than in economic growth and jobs for the working person. Such unsustainable growth of the boom bust type is more associated with disparity in income than communism, which has little to do with this issue. But if you want to debate it on that point, is not the USA/UK banking collapse model the ultimate outcome of capitalist incentives once divorced from the real needs of the people for jobs and adequate incomes.
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photonz
Once again you distort what I said
“Previously you were comparing us to the rest of the world”
No not really.
At 10.38 I said this -
10.38 am
It’s just the interference of continuing to have a minimum wage, a welfare system and WFF which prevents us from being outright world champions in the field.
Of nations which have
a minimum wage, welfare and provisions to supply tax credits to families with children
(which occurs throughout the OECD)
we are 4th ranked for income disparity.
Income disparity is linked to lower economic growth – which would be one reason why we have lower economic growth.
The two are probbaly related though – if we had economic incentives for capital to go into production rather than existing asset ownership we would provide more and higher paid jobs.
But for some reason the right does not believe in tax incentives for investment in plant and equipment nd R and D, only negative ones to perpetuate poverty for those with children on UB/SB/IB/DPB benefits. Funny that.
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7.3
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SPC,
So, you are saying that by giving this 20% even more of the money of those whom actually work for their subsistence we will somehow improve the situation of all of those children? Unlikely.
The vast majority of the problem with these 20% would not be the volume at all. It would be the parents ability to budget. Giving them more money will make the problem no better. Giving them more money, even assuming that it all went to the children (incredibly unlikely), would still be of little benefit compared to a food-in-schools program as that money would likely be invested in expensive food with little nutritional value.
I know that you will likely try to argue that these parents are no worse than other parents in raising their kids and that they care just as much and provide for them just as well. Let me pre-empt you; bull-sh*t. The very fact that they are in the lowest groups indicates they are the lowest denominator in society. It indicates they are useless. It indicates they cannot plan for the future or cannot be bothered acting on such plans. The obesity statistics among this class of ‘people’ would certainly attest to their high nutritional standards and the cooking skills they imbue in their offspring.
Giving them more money will do nothing to remedy or relieve the plight of child, it will merely mean more McDonalds, booze, and cigarettes. By offering food in schools and providing completely free education up to tertiary level we give these children a step up. By doing this we give them an equal opportunity at life. By doing this we decrease the amount of money wasted on dead-beats. I am not saying that we should be putting them all in boarding schools. Boarding schools are a last resort to get the children away from useless parents deserving of gonad removal.
I find it interesting that you talk about the cost of a proposal for once as you seem to ignore it everywhere else. The cost is not so large and is not a benefit to only 20%, it benefits all children by providing them with nutritious food and a good education independent of how useless their parents may be. It allows us to remove most of benefits for supporting kids. It allows us economies of scale; the food that these families purchase is majorly inflated by the distributors and by stores. By doing this we set up such an economy that it would be entirely economic for the state to set up its own distributor, this would allow food to be accessed incredibly cheaply by the state and would increase revenues to farmers. We could employ the willing unemployed in the distribution and school kitchens. We could have the children learn to grow and cook. This would provide massive benefit and would cost about the same -probably less- as providing money to useless bludgers.
80% of children do not need the subsidy to their parents? I agree entirely! So you will be advocating clawing back benefits and WfF then? You will be renouncing your support for a high minimum wage? Perhaps you have finally seen the light!
Yes, I believe that incentives exist. Incentives are a truth of nature. A fundamental law. Incentives are even more fundamental than evolution; something proven beyond any reasonable doubt. Your dismissal of them is nothing but ideological stupidity. Incentives, SPC, are what creates wealth. Without incentives there would be no society; indeed, if we go far enough we could argue that there would be no multi-celled organisms.
Do not assign me positions. I advocate full-employment, it is you whom advocate unemployment. The availability of lower waged jobs does nothing to undermine wage bargaining, if anything it strengthens the position in exactly the same way as the benefit does. Job bargaining has never been effected by the availability of lower waged jobs but of the supply of labour and the retardation of the unions. I advocate cheap, or even free, childcare provided by the state, so don’t try and use that excuse against me either. I would set up a society where anyone willing to put in effort will succeed, the difference between me and you is that I make them put in effort while you want those whom put in effort to be punished and those whom sit on their arse to be rewarded; or at least that is what every post of yours indicates.
Your approach may be simpler but it is also almost entirely redundant. Your false dichotomy is rejected.
Someone on the minimum wage has no need or right to their own home.
So? It is legitimate! It is because of incentives that they even have the family they can not provide for!
The human rights act is of no relevance. If they need support from the state then, by definition, they are unfit! That they need it is proof!
Income disparity at 12.5? That is incredibly low! It should be much higher, those with skills deserve far more than those whom sit on their arse, in the absence of such we do not have the money to support those whom sit on their arse in the first place!
Guess we should open up our minerals to mining then, huh? That is, if we want to be equal to Aussie or exceed their level.
The problems associated with income disparity are not because of economic disparity itself but because economic disparity tends to be coupled with low ability to move up the socio-economic ladder. Here we do not have that as we have a student loan and a semi-decent education system. I propose to make it easier to move up, you propose to make it harder. You are creating the problems, I am solving them.
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spc says “Income disparity is linked to lower economic growth – which would be one reason why we have lower economic growth.
This is outright wrong. Some of the very top countries for economic growth have some of the highest income disparity. Others high growth countries have some of the lowest disparity. Others are in the middle.
I agree that production (and productivity) are what will improve the economic situation for NZ.
And I agree that we need to put more investment into improving this.
THEN we will be able to lift wages.
If we lift wages FIRST, when companies are only just keeping their heads above water, then there is LESS available for investment in productivity.
R & D tax incentive becomes very messy to police. There’s many loopholes, and difficulty in judging what’s legitimate and what’s not. Schemes can be started just for avoiding tax.
A much better way of doing it is simply a very low or zero company tax. That would incentivise companies to spend on growth.
If profits ever leave the company into the hands of private individuals, the govt taxes it anyway – mostly at the top personal tax rate.
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That, in a nutshell, is the lefts approach to just about everything. The odious, destructive politics of envy.
Great post, Sapient.
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sapient
I’ll reverse your logic, companies do not need a tax cut or to raise their prices, they just need to learn to budget .. it sums up welfare bashing and associated economic rationalism in all its glory.
Photonz
You might be confusing economic wealth (and average per capita) with growth, the recent trend to growing income disparity in the UK and USA is not occuring with improving growth but a declining growth performance.
You say companies don’t need R and D tax credits to grow the econonmy, they just need lower taxes. Thing is we have had lower R and D tax credits than most of the OECD and consequent lower rates of investment and growth – despite company tax rates comparable for the most part. So we know what does not work. And you want a more extreme position without incentives. Why?
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SPC,
I know you did not intend it as such but that does actually work, especially if the company is a part of a oligopoly. Given that beneficiaries will be given the same no matter how much they work and that minimum wage workers will be paid minimum wage so long as they are willing to work, they may be treated as monopolies (beneficiaries) and oligopolies (minimum wage workers) for this comparison.
If the company wants to make optimum profits then it needs to get off its arse and react to the market. If the beneficiaries want a better life they have to get off their arse and respond to the market.
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sapient
So your benefit bashing includes the unproven assertion that child poverty is a problem resulting from poor budgeting of the parents, not the lack of money. Have you shown that there are amongst the children in poverty, others not in poverty with parents in the same circumstance – who simply have better budgeting skills? No, you have not.
Your arguement against extra help to parents is premised on a simple stereotype, some sort of prejudicial belief about others.
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As to the rest where does one begin?
“would still be of little benefit compared to a food-in-schools program as that money would likely be invested in expensive food with little nutritional value.”
Beneficiaries don’t buy expensive food sapient, they buy cheaper food often more processed and less nutritional. They often cannot afford meat and fruit and vegetables and struggle with higher dairy prices.
My problem with food in schools is the extra cost of providing food to those of families who do not need the help. Targeting it to some schools still includes those there with parents on WFF and will still exclude children from poor families at other schools.
It’s not something I would oppose as it is at least an effort at reducing child poverty.
But is beneficiary bashing and claiming children are in poverty because their parents cannot budget going to result in public support for food in schools? No, it will increase resistant to any more help at all.
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SPC,
I have provided evidence previously. I have no time to provide it again. I associate with these people, I know what its like; this is, for the most part, my social group. This is where my friends reside. A good two thirds of my female friends are in this position and a good two thirds of my friends are female.
Every one of them is surviving well.
Nutritious food is cheap. I call it veges. McDonald’s is expensive and non-nutritious, as are all the processed foods they buy. I worked as a checkout operator for years; I know what they buy. This could be changed by encouraging proper eating and cooking skills in schools. There is bugg#r all elsewhere that they will gain those skill growing up with these parents.
I propose it in all schools. It is not that expensive comparatively and little is lost by providing it to the children of the well off. If one really wanted to one could give breakfast and afternoon tea/dinner for free only to those whom are not well off or could make the food be purchased and then give credits to the children (though that option brings in a whole lot of other problems).
If benefits really need to be increased (which I would contest) then that can still be done, but this is a far superior solution.
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Anecdotal evidence, quite the academic approach.
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Sapient, what exactly is the cost of providing kitchens and dining areas in all schools and providing breakfast and lunch. Compared to other options? I’ve never seen any research on this.
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spc says “You might be confusing economic wealth (and average per capita) with growth”
No, I’m not. – Look at some of the highest growth rates – Brazil and China, who have massive income disparity of 50 x and (from memory) 20+ x.
It’s not only way too simplistic to try to link income disparity with economic growth – it’s very misleading.
You’ll find countries with high growth that have high, medium and low income disparity.
And there are countries will no economic growth whatsoever that have high, medium and low income disparity.
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Level:_Why_More_Equal_Societies_Almost_Always_Do_Better
This speaks to the issue particularly well in relation to child-wellbeing.
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Sapient
It’s an interesting profile you have of parents who receive welfare support.
“I know that you will likely try to argue that these parents are no worse than other parents in raising their kids and that they care just as much and provide for them just as well. Let me pre-empt you; bull-sh*t. The very fact that they are in the lowest groups indicates they are the lowest denominator in society. It indicates they are useless. It indicates they cannot plan for the future or cannot be bothered acting on such plans. The obesity statistics among this class of ‘people’ would certainly attest to their high nutritional standards and the cooking skills they imbue in their offspring. Giving them more money will do nothing to remedy or relieve the plight of child, it will merely mean more McDonalds, booze, and cigarettes.”
You are presumably aware that most of the 100,000 on the DPB are there only a few years and this after losing jobs or working partners.
There are less than 10,000 long term on the UB (as the rate fell to 3% a few years back – possibly few are parents given the many youth on the UB.
So of the rest, there is the SB and IB – up to around 100,000 in total but possibly many not supporting children.
So your profile of the 150,000 or so parents on welfare is about those people. Do you think this accurately reflects those women losing their jobs or working partners? Or those who are on IB, or those on SB?
You may think such a profile will encourage society to support help directly to their children via universal provision of breakfast and lunch in all schools. I don’t mind if that occured, or universal free childcare for working parents (but only if there was a higher minimum wage – not to simply subsidise more low wage paying employers) – but do you think society is really likely to buy into that?
Use your academic skills, why would people who are not on welfare, whose children are well-fed, and who do not need to use subsidised childcare spend their tax money that way? A false version of the nature of those on welfare is going to somehow convince them?
Obviously only a Labour led government would consider any of this (National won’t even allow a regulation towards healthy food in schools) a – and possibly only if the Greens call for it. Are your arguements likely to sway Labour to justify the cost to the public? Given they are arguements which appeal to the bigotry held against those on welfare by those on the right who oppose such universal approaches?
Using a false profile, and to no good effect, is not a logical approach.
In the end this is about universal provision (food in schools and affordable childcare) or targeting to the 20% of children in need. Attacking the parents is not really a constructive part of the debate, it only slanders many unfairly – judgement of whole groups of people in that way only encourages prejudice and ultimately discrimination based on employment status and income/class.
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SPC,
Yes actually, it is an approach used highly in sociology, anthropology, and the psudo-psychology which is social contructivist psychology.
The kitchens and dinning areas would be a large up-front cost but would provide monumental benefit in the long term for the children. Particularly so if growing some food at school is encouraged.
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As for your claim to be for full employment and that I am for unemployment …
Oh please explain.
Is your reasoning that you support a lower minimum wage and that support for a higher one would result in higher unemployment?
What exactly is the relation of rate of unemployment to the level of the minimum wage? Many economists no longer think there is much of a link. In a word globalisation – reducing price sensitive production jobs leaving lower wage jobs in the service sector which society requires and or chooses – and generally the word inelastic applies. All those providing the services are affected by the same minimum wage so they pass on costs to those requiring the services.
Did you support the Greens jobs programme?
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SPC,
Yes, they have lost jobs and working partners; this indicates they can not plan -or at least pre-empt- or do not carry through on plans. The description holds.
You are forgetting the big one; WfF. If you are on the minimum wage and expect to raise family then you are simply irresponsible. If you do so and do so poorly such that you need support then you are scum. If you fail to plan for a divorce or the loss of a supporting partner then you are stupid. If you fail to obtain a secure job or sufficient income to save for an eventual job loss then you are lazy. If you intend to support children and you have an illness that would stop you doing so properly you are scum. If you have children and fail to plan for the chance that you will need to go on the IB or the SB and account for this by ensuring an alternative source of income then you are an idiot. It is all there fault, it is all there stupidity. The citizen whom actually bothers to plan for this stuff should not have to pick up after the inept. We only provide an equal start for children for the childrens future, giving the parents money will do nothing for the well-being of the child.
I think anyone with half a brain would realise that there is a benefit to children in having a cooked lunch available to their children. I think anyone above the retard level would realise that this is a far more effective means of enhancing the welfare of those worse off. Accepting that they must do so anyway I believe many would support such moves. The child care would be rather inexpensive after initial set-up costs as the money would be only slightly more than that paid on the DPB -and paid mostly to those whom would otherwise be on the DPB- and would allow many on the DPB to work.
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SPC,
I am for a railways style safety net. This means full employment, self-respect, and some actual income to offset the cost.
You are for a high minimum wage. That means less jobs which means greater unemployment. It also means less investment.
You are for an even more progressive tax system. That means less investment. Less investment means less jobs; more unemployment.
You are for higher benefits and more tax credits. That means less incentive to work, more incentive to not strive for betterment, and more government expenditure.
The only logical conclusion is that you are either a retard or you hate workers.
You seem to think that costs are all passed on. They are not. The profit margins are cut, this decreases investment and the creation of new jobs. To maintain profitability fewer workers are employed for the same job, increasing the workload and increasing unemployment. These people stay unemployed because there are no new jobs to go in to because you killed the investment. Those companies which are not totally inelastic go bust and there is more unemployed and less jobs. The reason that so few jobs (if you call 8,100 a few) would be lost with a move to $15 is because the recession has already ensured that those whom were not inelastic have gone bust. If it was in a better time more would become unemployed, instead you are just preventing people from finding employment again.
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SPC – So there’s a book about why countries with more equal incomes almost always do better – is that the communist handbook renamed?
Lets look at the worlds most equal countries, like Czech Republic, Bosnia, Hungary, Slovenia, Ukrane, Krygyzstan, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Slovakia, Veitnam, Bulgaria, Albania, Croatia, Bangladesh, Romania, Indonesia, South Korea, Tajikastan, Armenia (all 19 are in the top 25 of most equal countries for top 10% compared to bottom 10% of income).
A single list of the world’s most equal countries smashed the premise for the whole book.
What we need are equal opportunities – not equal income.
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photonz
Dare to show the economic growth rates for the countries you listed and compare them to us since say 1990?
You will find some of them have passed them in per cpaita levels and others are catching up.
“Czech Republic, Bosnia, Hungary, Slovenia, Ukrane, Krygyzstan, Pakistan, Ethiopia, Slovakia, Veitnam, Bulgaria, Albania, Croatia, Bangladesh, Romania, Indonesia, South Korea, Tajikastan, Armenia (all 19 are in the top 25 of most equal countries for top 10% compared to bottom 10% of income).
A single list of the world’s most equal countries smashed the premise for the whole book.”
Really and exactly how does it do that?
Excluding Pakistan and Bosnia for obvious reasons – most of the rest have better growth records than us since 1990. And most are catching us on per capita.
And PS – you should check what the book’s actual focus was. It spoke to the issue of why lack of equal opportunity exacerbates society disfunction and that lack of equal opportunity arises out of income inequality.
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Sapient
So let’s simply note the obvious,
I support Green policy direction on income and employment issues and you say that I am therefore a retard and that I hate workers.
You also say that all those on welfare are retards “for not planning for their possible need”. You make similar attacks on low income workers being retards “for not getting skills to be worthy of higher pay”.
Apparently to you, society is full of retards.
And you say those who don’t support you on free food for all in all schools are also retards.
So welcome to frogblog where people are called retards for receiving welfare, being in low wage jobs, supporting Green Party policy in support of them, or simply not supporting your ideas.
Is retard the default word you resort to to demean others by group association profile or to launch personal attacks on those who don’t agree with you? Or is there something more to it than that, perhaps some psychological need to present some academic/intellectual superiority, something to be maintained by slighting “lesser people” as retards?
Some people talk loudly when debating to assert dominance and others simply use the net to launch attacks on the “retards” in society.
A challenge, try debating the issues without using the word. If you can.
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spc says – most of the rest have better growth records than us since 1990. And most are catching us on per capita.
You reckon they’ve had much better growth since 1990….hmmmm…..thats the year they all dropped left wing idealology for a free market.
Or perhaps they have good growth because they have very low minimum wages?
(there’s not s single high wage country in the top 35 GDP growth rates)
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photonz
If most of those countries with the most equal incomes have better economic growth than us and are catching us in per capita incomes – why the silly claim earlier that the list of those nations with more equal incomes disproved the merit of a more equal society?
I doubt any has a market any freer than our own, and as to the minimum wage issue their incomes are more equal than our own.
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Who cares if their wage is more equal if they’re all living in poverty.
The large majority (about 80%) of the most equal societies are poor countries.
You’re desperately trying to link two simple factors in complex web of economic factors – when they bear little relationship to each other.
Some of the most equal countries are poor, some are rich.
Some of the most unequal countries are rich, some are poor.
Countries growing the fastest include very unequal, and very equal countries.
The one thing in common with fast growing countries, is that they are all relatively poor – rich countries (whether equal or unequal) do not grow fast.
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SPC,
No, I say that your support of these positions indicates that you are either a retard -as you fail to understand the effects that such policies would have- or you hate workers -as hurting workers is all your proposals ever do-. I have made the same critique of the party many times over. As have others here whom have given up the futility of arguing with the deaf. I have made the same critique of one particular MP on many occasions, including to her face. She has never come up with a rebuttal that is anything other than ‘right’, ‘entitlement’, and ‘exploitation’.
I did not state that they were retards, at least not in that post. That is for the next paragraph.
If we use the definition of retardation as starting at two standard deviations bellow the norm then retardation is set at an IQ of 70. If we set the norm at my level of 160 (the tests max at four standard deviations, so it is probably higher) then anyone bellow 130 may be defined as mentally retarded. That is over 97% of the population. So, technically, compared to myself, and some other commentators here, the population is very much composed of retards.
It is not those whom do not support me that I have a problem with. People are free to not support me all they like. I love debate more than I love sex (and, considering I am presently trying to curb my sex addiction, that is something). It is when people hold firm to stupid and naïve ideologies which harm society that I get angry. It is for that which people whom do so over many debates -only you and sofistik- end up receiving the retard designation. These people destroy society and hurt the children already born, they hurt my friends, they hurt my friends offspring, and they hurt any offspring I may one-day have. It is an assault on all that I value; a dogma in any form is an atrocity.
In terms of a psychological need to make demean others; it is not so. As an artefact of my upbringing I constantly find myself seeking the approval of others; my resorting to such words acts against that, it is a failure of myself to contain my frustration toward you. That said, it is a rather succinct way of summarising your arguments and suits the purpose well.
As to the growth, it is irrelevant. One can not compare the growth of a foetus to the growth of a teen to the growth of a senile fart. A economy not well developed is grown vastly more easily than one which is developed and is already exploiting its advantages at full bore. This is even easier with foreign technology and investment. Basic economic literacy (or biological understanding at that).
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On the matter of growth, income disparity is associated with a disfunctional society and is related to a lack of equality of opportunity. This ultimately undermines growth.
Some rich countries sustain growth, some don’t – the question is why is that. Of the OECD we rank 4th for income disparity – the three above us -USA, Portugal and UK have it worse than we do at present – in terms of growth forecasts (and deficits). The UK has less equality of opportunity today than it had back in the 1950′s.
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Sapient
Do you think your use of the word retard to describe those who support party policy on incomes and employment is one reason why few party members choose to support them here in debate?
I doubt those who support the party on incomes and employment issues would appreciate finding beneficiaries and low wage workers called retards either. Or those who are beneficiaries and low wage workers supporting party policy would enjoy coming here and reading it either.
I note how you explain that use of the word is a privilege/entitlement that only a few superior people such as yourself are able to qualify for. If we responded in kind of course that would lower the tone of the debate.
Your explanation for your inability to debate without resort to the petty slights of those who hold to a position you disagree with, is that they keep holding to it after you say why you don’t agree. The Green Party also holds to policy positions despite your disagreement with them and I suppose by transference you attack personally who are supportive of the existing party policy line.
You conclude by claiming that Green Party policy destroys society, children, your friends, their children, and your unborn children. That it is an assault on all you value, that it’s dogma on economic and social policy is an atrocity. And in frustration you lash out at any individual who dares defend it in debate on their own blog.
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SPC,
Yes, it is true that there is a general trend toward dysfunctional characteristics in societies with greater income inequality. We have, however, been over this before; human society is complex.
We can not be compared to the USA and Portugal, even the UK is a stretch. Our societies are fundamentally different and our income inequality is for fundamentally different reasons. All of these societies, New Zealand included, fail when it comes to equality of outcome; something I, as a psychologist, would consider desirable. The top three fail substantially in equality of opportunity; the UK is not as bad as the others as its public provisions are substantially more advanced but the class system -and the money and education associated with that class system- work against that. New Zealand is better, though still far from ideal, when it comes to equality of outcome. As much as I hate to admit it, an education vouchers system would actually go far toward promoting equality of opportunity.
In a society with a high degree of equality of opportunity, a child born to a poor drug-addict can become someone at the top of the pay scale. In a society with a high degree of equality of opportunity, that which separates the rich from the poor is not inheritance but effort. Ultimately, we can not eliminate inequality of opportunity in its entirety but we can do our best to try; we are already pretty far on our way. I can think of many approaches which would increase equality of opportunity and achievement and I promote those at any chance I get; food in schools and affordable childcare are examples of that.
Our society as it stands presently is not an ideal but it is sufficiently close that effort can get you anywhere. In my personal opinion the greatest problem in our society, and that which causes the discontent, is people whom say to the not-well-off that it is not their fault and that they are being exploited. It is the people whom instill a sense of helplessness or futility in them. It is the people whom turn them in to victims of others rather than of themselves.
Incentives are important. It is incentives that drive someone to succeed. For some the incentives will be money, for others it will be the security money can buy. For this reason it is important that there is a large income disparity for without it there is no motive to work and the society itself will begin to degrade. When you give more money than is needed to those whom do not work you incentivise sitting on ones arse and disincentivise the investment that is up-skilling and effort in general. The ideal inequality for a society is cited as between 25 and 40. New Zealand is 35 and most of the Northern European are about 30, we are not that bad on inequality of outcome despite being good-ish on equality of opportunity. Ultimately though, the two can not exist together. With equality of opportunity people start at the same level but some individuals will work more than others and some have more skills than others, to have these people all receive the same -or similar- rewards is to pursue equality of outcome whilst sacrificing equality of opportunity and prosperity.
The perception of class mobility is what is important, not disparity in equality of outcome.
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The debate between economists on the economic growth side of the equation alone is quite fierce (that there are adverse societal problems consequent from income disparity is not really in dispute – the question is over whether this disparity results in a lack of a real equality of opportunity, and if so, what negative impact occurs for economic growth prospects).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_inequality
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SPC,
It is not just myself. It is just that I am the only one whom still bothers. All of your points have been totally slaughtered by others on this blog many times over. Many of the party policies have received the same treatment. Not once has a coherent argument been launched against the critiques.
Frustration is a valid response to dogma.
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Sapient, perception is two edged, it can be the perception of the society that it provides equality of opportunity (the UK has safety nets but is declining in this area for some reason), or it is the perception of those from lower income families (living with the societal disfunction that flows around this) that they have equality of opportunity. I’d aspire for a society less complacent about the “equality” of that opportunity and where those with a less than equal chance at least recognising that they did have some and hopefully enough opportunity.
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Sapient
So you are happy in your own mind as to what is so about correct public policy. So are all other voters to the point they choose to become informed. I suppose you are a little unique in relating your own opinion to objective truth and variations on it being ascribed to dogma beyond appeal to your semblance of what is reason/reasonable.
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SPC,
It is the perception of equality of opportunity by those less well off that is important. So long as they realise that they are where they are as a result of their own failure then the social problems do not arise. It is when they blame others that the problems become real.
No, I am not happy in my own mind as to what is correct. That is why my posistion is constantly changing. That is why I participate on this blog. I am deliberately encountering those with opposing views in the hope that they can provide me with insight so as to change my views. I am doing a 8-year degree such that I may be well informed on the matter and I have every intention of spending the rest of my life studying the human such that I may understand. I am not certain that I am correct and I have no claim to objective truth, but there is not a shred of evidence to support your positions. No evidence and yet you cling in the face of counter-evidence; it is pretty much the definition of a dogmatic individual.
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Sapient
Some bold and sweeping claims Sapient. Now you bring in the evidence based positions line – implying yours have evidential support and mine do not. Is that really the case – assertions are cheap. And I hope you don’t mean anecdotal evidence.
In future let me know when you are claiming to provide evidence to dismiss my position when you do it. Usually you make claims about what happened on other threads some time afterward.
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Sapient, I don’t really agree with your point on the perception thing. First its the perception of children raised up in lower income household areas which is important and they are not responsible for anything more than taking advantage of what opportunities they do have. Whether they have a sense that society is not fair, or simply that they have a less than equal chance, is not a problem provided they focus on taking up what opportunity they do have. This speaks to the most important thing about income disparity whether it perpetuates across generations.
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