...on both sides of the political aisle, but it won't.
The study — based on millions of anonymous earnings records and being released this week by a team of top academic economists — is the first with enough data to compare upward mobility across metropolitan areas. These comparisons provide some of the most powerful evidence so far about the factors that seem to drive people’s chances of rising beyond the station of their birth, including education, family structure and the economic layout of metropolitan areas.
On the one hand it appears that welfare, food stamps, tax breaks etc. don't lock people into a cycle of poverty. On the other hand levying high taxes on the wealthy to help with income redistribution don't seem to break that cycle.
Sacred cows on both sides get gored.
As Ace points out the three most important factors for upward mobility seem to be:
1. Coming from an intact, two-parent family
2. Good schools
3. Civic engagement with churches and other social organizations
Dr. Walter E. Williams has long had a set of rules for avoiding poverty:
* Graduate high school
* Get married before you have children
* If you get married, stay married
* Get a job, any job. A minimum wage job is a stepping stone
* Avoid engaging in criminal behavior
This article would appear to validate his contentions.
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