Who Is Helped by Mobility?

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Clarissa

May 21, 2016

In the NYTimes today there is an article by the president of the American Enterprise Institute who argues that we should stop trying to educate people and instead should shuffle them around. This, of course, is entirely disingenuous. Geographical mobility only works to the advantage of highly educated high-earners. Chasing minimum-wage employment around the continent is a waste of time because the psychological, emotional, social, and financial consequences of long-distance moving will never be off-set by whatever paltry sums can potentially be earned as a result of such a move.

I find it hard to believe that the author of the article is so stupid that he doesn’t realize how devastating long-distance moving is to people who don’t have $100K incomes. He is probably very well-aware of it but is simply being a jerk.

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10 responses to “Who Is Helped by Mobility?”

Barbara

May 21, 2016

Arthur Brooks is an apologist for the 1% of the 1%. He makes a nice living being clueless about how the world actually works for most of us. This op ed is just one of many he has written in which he blames the not-well-to-do for their lot in life.

He could know better but chooses not to. “Jerk” doesn’t begin to describe him.

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Vic Crain

May 21, 2016

It’s not a surprise to hear the AEI taking a position like this. Their politics is somewhere to the right of Atilla the Hun.

Ultimately, with the cutback in support programs, regressive tax agendas and elimination of state colleges, we’re seen a concerted effort to reinvent what Jefferson called “wage slavery” — basically the creation of a permanent underclass with a relatively low standard of living and no opportunity for betterment. They depersonalize the poor, and then feel free to move then around to fill whatever needs business has.

The paradox is that the economic “Haves” still expect these people to spend freely in their stores. And while these people want their taxes cut, they expect government to fund the poor so they can spend.

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1. cliff arroyo
  
  May 22, 2016
  
  If you believe in cyclical phenomena in human societies we’re in a second guilded age marked by similar levels of unskilled immigration, social stratification and naked status striving (down to increased levels of facial hair for men – which tends to accompany times of status striving)
  
  Eventually (hopefully) it will be followed by a period less inequality and both Trump and Sanders are symptoms of a public fed up with Neo-gilded ideology.
  
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Dreidel

May 22, 2016

Hey, you want to be mobile all over the world without spending a dime? Not that hard.

When I left the hills of Tennessee to start my medical career in sunny California, I loaded all of my earthly belongings into the trunk and back seat of a used Chevy II with only five functional cylinders, and headed west. (Okay, cost me gas money — 19 cents a gallon, and motel rooms — Motel 6’s were called that for a reason: They cost $6 a night.)

Five years later, after I got bored of practicing civilian psychiatry in San Bernardino, I dialed up an Air Force recruiter, and spent the next 21 years in a dozen countries on three different continents, and none of those moves cost me a penny.

My last move, to my current retirement location in Arizona, was also at government expense. After 18 years in retirement, I still pay far higher taxes than I should, so I’ve contributed my share.

You wonder why I vote Republican? Because I made it without a government crutch.

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1. R.
  
  May 22, 2016
  
  “You wonder why I vote Republican? Because I made it without a government crutch.”
  
  Umm, Dreidel… correct me if I’m wrong, but those dozen, “cost free” moves over your 21 years in the USAF were paid for by…the government/taxpayers. As were your salary and your (compared to most civilians’) generous pension and retirement benefits.
  
  I have no problem with decent salaries and benefits and pensions for our retired service members. But how is that “making it without a government crutch”? There is a disconnect here that baffles me.
  
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  1. cliff arroyo
    
    May 22, 2016
    
    “Dreidel… correct me if I’m wrong”
    
    You took the bait…..
    
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cliff arroyo

May 22, 2016

Mobility works best for people who don’t need mobility to have a nice lifestyle. It works terribly for everybody else.

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J. Otto Pohl

May 22, 2016

I have been chasing sub-minimum wage jobs ($5 an hour or so) across multiple continents for years now because the alternative is no job and no wage. I thought I couldn’t earn less than minimum wage so I went and got a PhD. Then I was unemployed for three years before finding a sub-minimum wage job in Kyrgyzstan. Now I am in Ghana but the wage is not much higher and I’ll move again anywhere as soon as I find something that pays even a little bit better.

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Dreidel

May 22, 2016

@R:

“Umm, Dreidel… correct me if I’m wrong, but those dozen, ‘cost free’ moves over “your 21 years in the USAF were paid for by…the government/taxpayers.As were your salary and your (compared to most civilians’) generous pension and retirement benefits.”

Anyone who has served in the military knows that it’s a sacrifice now, reap later system. You receive essentially sustenance income that allows you and your family to enjoy a basic middle class lifestyle as long as they shop at the subsidized commissary and exchange store on base. If you have a profession like a physician, as I did, you forfeit considerable up-front income in return for job security and freedom from certain costs (medical malpractice insurance, net cost of running a private practice, etc.). Your spouse gets no chance to build up a career resume as he/she travels about with you every few years, and your kids really HATE leaving their BFFs after they reach a certain age in school.

You make no profit as you move, and you barely break even when the government takes ridiculous depreciation costs on damages. (The movers smashed that picture of your great-grandfather in the hallway? Well, that frame was sixty years old, so of course its replacement value has decreased by 90%. Get the idea?)

The “generous pension and retirement benefits” are QUITE relative, depending on what they’re compared to. Did I get a golden parachute worth $50 million when I retired like a failed CEO? After being retired for 18 years, my adjusted-for-inflation pension last year was a paltry $73,000 — less than firefighters and cops in many municipalities receive, and I don’t begrudge them a penny. At least my benefits are guaranteed for life, and my medical care is essentially free for ever. The Social Security Benefits that started at age 70 pushed my guaranteed annual government income over $100,000.

As for the cream — the REAL loot that I get every year from the stock market — I did that on my own, starting my stock market investments the very first month I joined the service (Like I said, low gross pay but zero overhead left me with a lot of investable income,and I put it in month after month, through bull and bear market, and the roller-coaster ride has always gone ultimately upward.)

@cliff arroyo

“Dreidel… correct me if I’m wrong” You took the bait….”

You’re right — and the bait never dies, but keeps growing and growing, the more I feast on it.

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1. Clarissa
  
  May 22, 2016
  “After being retired for 18 years, my adjusted-for-inflation pension last year was a paltry $73,000 — less than firefighters and cops in many municipalities receive, and I don’t begrudge them a penny. At least my benefits are guaranteed for life, and my medical care is essentially free for ever. The Social Security Benefits that started at age 70 pushed my guaranteed annual government income over $100,000.”
  
  That’s fantastic. Good for you. My parents are about to retire in Canada, and their retirement payments will be so pathetic that it doesn’t even make sense to mention them. Of course, they only emigrated 18 years ago, so it’s a benefit that reflects an 18-year-long employment history.
  
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