Opportunity Vs. Income Gap: Another Barack Obama Lie

by 03) Mike Madden on January 25, 2014

The phrase “You can’t make this up” comes to mind in terms of what Barack Obama has been doing to demagogue the rise of the number of people on public assistance.  He is taking this lie to a new level and changing the story to the mantra of the lack of opportunity in the United States.

On December 6, 2011 at Osawatomie High School in Osawatomie, Kansas the President said this:

Fewer and fewer of the folks who contributed to the success of our economy actually benefited from that success. Those at the very top grew wealthier from their incomes and their investments — wealthier than ever before. But everybody else struggled with costs that were growing and paychecks that weren’t — and too many families found themselves racking up more and more debt just to keep up.

This was pretty much refuted by a report from the National Bureau of Economic Research entitled “Where is the Land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States”  put in layman’s terms , how easily do people move from poor to rich and vice versa.  The President want you to believe it is impossible to do so but this report kills that whole lie.

In fact the report states that the percentage of the very poor who make it into the rich category is about 8 percent and has been consistent for over 25 years. Imagine the implications of this fact to the statement that many are saying Barack Obama is about to make  in the State of the Union Speech.  He has been building to the whole Income Inequality argument for months.  Sadly we find again that his statements are nothing but lies. A fabrication to keep his base fired up to continue his policies and to further his control of the economy.

In fact, many of the government programs that are associated with helping others are the very problem with our ability to rise from poverty, which is probably the most interesting aspect of the study.  Here is a quick synopsis of the factors they considered and the weight these factors play in our ability to be upwardly mobile:

Race: The report could not pinpoint race as a factor in the ability of American to increase their income.

Segregation:  Sighting segregation of the the poor from the middle class was an interesting finding.  Many cities have housing projects where the poor are clearly segregated from the rest of the community.  The report clearly finds this to be a detriment to upward mobility.

Tax Credits or Public Goods for the poor: The authors found that areas where these incentives are offered do have some impact on the upward mobility but it is strongly outweighed by the segregation issue.

Schools: The paper addressed school spending but did not use that as a factor, what they did use was outcomes for students. There is no doubt that the quality of the schooling impacts the movement within the system of people.  But bear in mind it was not about spending but quality outcomes.

Higher Education: This was the most important piece of information in the report pertaining to higher education “areas with greater upward mobility tend to have high college attendance rates for children from low-income families”  I think there can be no more clear statement.  The inverse would then be true.  So this was a statistical wash for the authors.

Labor Market:  This was an examination of children who were employed  between 14-16 and found the areas with the highest employment numbers in that group had higher mobility.  There is a theme building here

There were a few more factors considered but the held little weight to the study.  So what was the theme you ask?  The factors that impact our mobility the most all start well before we enter the workplace.  Working at a young age which is something many of the current group may not get to do thanks to staggering taxes and spending by the government.  Access to people who are not in your same income group, Housing projects, i.e. segregation, are a detriment to upward mobility.  Quality Schools not more school spending but more accountability would be effective.

It looks like the President is running out of cards tlo play in the inequality argument.  Maybe he should apologize to the nation for continuing to hold down the poor and create more of them.  We can overcome many of these issues without government intervention.  It has been that intervention that is causing most of the oppression.