Even if you are not convinced of all these, they are certainly something
to think about.

Five myths about poverty
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlo...05a_story.html


I see flaws: "And what about rising from rags to riches? In the United
States, 1 in 25 children raised in the bottom quintile of the income
distribution are able to climb to the top quintile, while the figure in
Denmark is nearly 1 out of 6. In our popular rhetoric, we celebrate the
success of that single individual to the exclusion of the other 24."

I don't think that's the best measure. I pay attention to this and I
observe many cases where someone goes from the bottom quintile to the
4th or 5th but it takes two generations. One generation to get to the
3rd, and another to go higher. I think most people who start off in the
bottom 5th and make it to the middle one are satisified, that is, until
something goes wrong and they're back down in the second or first again,
and there are many things that can and do go wrong. The pandemic has
ruined lots of businesses, and caused many people to be laid off even
from businesses that aren't bankrupt. That's just one example.


I like to tell about the boy who mowed my lawn when he was in HS. Now
he's VP of a Fortune 100 company and president of one of its
subsidiaries, one that on its own is probably as big as a F500 company.
His mother still lives near me in a modest house. I'm sure he'd buy her
something much fancier if she wanted. His parents had decent jobs, but I
can't tell if even together they were 2nd or 3rd quintile, and I haven't
nerve enough to ask about their parents.