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Hard work is often touted as the key American virtue that leads to success and opportunity. And there's lots of evidence to suggest that workers buy into the belief: For example, a recent study found that Americans work 25 percent more hours than Europeans, and that U.S. workers tend to take fewer vacation days and retire later in life. But for many, simply working hard doesn't actually lead to a better life.
In the past, economists have acknowledged that citing hard work as the path to prosperity is overly simplistic and optimistic. Ultimately, whether hard work alone can lift people into better economic conditions is a more complex question. The formula only works if an individual's efforts are met with opportunities for a better life. According to research, it's getting harder and harder for Americans to move up the income ladder.
A new poll from the Strong, Prosperous and Resilient Communities Challenge (SPARCC), an initiative to bolster local economies, found that Americans are quite skeptical of the narrative connecting wealth with personal agency. SPARCC found that 74 percent of those surveyed believed that most poor people work hard, but aren't able to work their way out of poverty due to the lack of economic opportunities. In the U.S., 19 percent of income inequality is attributed to predetermined circumstances such as a person's race, gender, and parental income. The SPARCC report also points to past research showing that economic mobility and health outcomes are greatly affected by geography as evidence that individual hard work won't ensure success because opportunities aren't evenly distributed.
The hard-work argument also plays into the policy discussion around inequality. As Katharine Bradbury and Robert Triest, both economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, write:
Increased inequality may result from increased risk taking and entrepreneurship in an environment of rapid technological change, with some entrepreneurs producing better, or just luckier, innovations than others, and reaping greater rewards. It may also result from increased disparities in work effort, with more industrious individuals earning higher incomes as a result of their greater effort. In both these cases, one could argue convincingly that the increase in inequality is justified and that no remedial changes in public policy are needed. On the other hand, if the increase in inequality results mostly from factors largely beyond the ability of individuals to control or counteract, then a strong case can be made for a public policy response.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Wednesday April 12 2017, @01:31PM (10 children)
I was going to say that I thought luck would count in a large way, but I think "luck" in the case of doing well is largely a matter of right place, right time. There are a lot of societal factors (parents, location, etc) that give you better odds without any effort. It's not intentional or exclusionary, and I guess it's still luck if you consider it how lucky you were to be borne in the right place to the right parents. It's silly to think it's bigotry or something, as it really is just luck of the draw. Terminology I guess ... kind of rude to make it sound like it's intentional exclusion.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday April 12 2017, @01:35PM
Apparently "luck of the draw" only accounts for 19% according to a comment lower down. So, no, it's really not luck.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Wednesday April 12 2017, @01:36PM (1 child)
Nevermind, that was you. Mea culpa, been up since 3:30AM.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday April 13 2017, @06:16AM
Culpa my ass. You know who else has been up since
Mea culpa, been up since 3:30AM.
>
Yes, your's truly. And I have to say, TMB that sleep, or lack of the same, does not seem to influence the insanity of your political position, though it may affect you troll skills. But we are really back to Colonel Kurz, in the Heart of Darkness, you know, Tennessee, where you ask me if I don't approve of your methods. And I say, "Sir, I don't see any method at all." That is where we are, Oh Might be a Buzzard, my head rising out of the water, with the appropriate grease camo paint, coming to kill you. Because, after all like Colonel Kurz, you did what needed to be done. But after you did it, you realized, "like a diamond bullet thorough your brain", https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o6tV1yfEPTk [youtube.com] Horror! Horror has a face. You must make a friend of horror, etc. , etc, Do you know how deep your psychosis goes, Oh Weakly Buzzard? You are actually what everyone has said you are. Colonel Kurz, at least, wanted to tear his teeth out, before he denied free lunches to school children. They are stronger than you are. Because, it is judgment, judgement that defeats us, it is SJWs that defeat us, because they are moral, and we are not! We deserve to die! We are grocery clerks, sent to collect a bill.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Wednesday April 12 2017, @02:03PM (6 children)
I think "luck" in the case of doing well is largely a matter of right place, right time
Over the decades I've found that luck does not translate across social classes.
What I see in my whiteopia cultural ancestry was anyone can learn multivariate calculus if they have the guts to work hard enough, and I had to study pretty hard, and I passed the classes. Other social classes see that and call it "luck", must have been born that way. Eh I was kinda naturally good at it but I put in the sweat too just like anyone else.
Decades ago in my 20s I was thin and muscular via "luck" according to some. Must be my superior partially German genetics that my people just have to look at a barbell and magically receive Schwarzenegger-esque biceps. Although further analysis indicates there is not much "luck" involved in spending an hour at the gym every day while people with less "luck" but a lot more beer belly were at the bar or pigging out on fast food. It never fails to amaze me for decades that if you talk to fat weaklings about how to get swole (as the kids say now a days) and you'll hear all about genetics and required "luck" as they gulp down their McDinner and suck down a quart of corn syrup soda before spending an evening sitting in front of the TV, but you talk to swole guys and you never hear the word "luck" all you need is hours sweating in the gym and clean food on the plate.
More than a decade ago I passed a lot of Cisco tests and got several certs because of "luck" according to some. Or maybe it was dozens of hours reading books and manuals and sitting at a router console that created my "luck".
It goes both ways of course. Lower class people seem to have very low stress lives due to "luck". Being able to figure out how to live life is nice but sometimes takes a lot of effort, whereas stumbling around in a drunken stupor as life happens to them is very low stress. Figuring out the next step in career or lifestyle is both possible and hard work, but its just "luck" that people who don't bother get to relax about that instead. Of course nothing good happens to them, but they are very lucky not to be stressed.
Observational evidence over some decades points to any claim across social classes of "luck" usually means just not understanding the situation. Inside a social class some are luckier than others. But across social group boundaries most observations of luck tend to just be misinterpretations. And so in a story on SN about high school dropouts, for most of us here any discussion of "luck" just boils down to not being in their socioeconomic group.
(Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Wednesday April 12 2017, @02:31PM
Absolutely. I think it counts with *all else being roughly equal* though.
(Score: 2) by bradley13 on Wednesday April 12 2017, @02:37PM
I like your post. I would just add: luck - to include lucky genetics - is most important in the extreme cases. Those, of course, are the ones that we hear about. Freak accident paralyzes gifted student. Concussion turns ordinary guy into concert pianist [dailymail.co.uk].
For the rest of us - and I would say this applies across all classes - self-discipline is the key to success. I can't really talk about success in the upper classes, because I have no experience there. But below that:
- At the bottom of the ladder, this means actually showing up for work on time, every day, not hung over, ready to work. When on the job, actually work. Don't be a lazy ass, sneaking off for smoke breaks or whatever. When you're on the job, work.
- In the middle class, all the above is assumed (yeah, I know, there are lazy asses, but they also don't go anywhere). Plus one new thing: willingness to take responsibility. If something goes wrong, don't pretend you didn't notice - fix it. If you make a mistake, don't hide it - own it and make it right. If you see a way to make things better - take the initiative, do it. There are damned few people who really think this way, but they sure are the ones you want as employees and as colleagues.
None of that is luck. None of it is genetics, unless there is a genetic basis for behavior. A lot of it is learned, though, from the environment you grow up in. Growing up in the slums does not teach good work habits. Beer-swilling bubba won't take responsibility for anything beyond the remote control. If one had the "bad luck" to be born into a bad environment, it takes extra determination (self-discipline) to break the pattern, but it is entirely possible.
Hey, I even found an academic reference supporting my claim that self-discipline is important [upenn.edu]
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:52PM (2 children)
anyone can learn multivariate calculus if they have the guts to work hard enough,
It's much harder if you can't afford to pay someone to teach you.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:58PM (1 child)
Oh spare me. I paid to sit in a lecture hall with 300 of my closest friends and then discussion group was led by a non-English speaking TA with 30 of my closest friends. I learned calculus all on my own, with the addition of watching some lectures, and there are now better lectures free on the internet.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday April 13 2017, @12:00AM
And a luckier person had a private tutor and someone giving them a back massage while they learned.
The other unlucky person was too busy working as a masseur for entitled assholes just to put food on the table and had limited time to study at all.
(Score: 1) by lonehighway on Wednesday April 12 2017, @05:54PM
I think a lot of the opportunities that I stumbled into were simply because I was a "nice young man." People were willing to give me the benefit of the doubt. What I did with those opportunities was up to me, so maybe a combination of luck and work?