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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.
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(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.