Why do you think Jews make so much more money than Catholics in the USA?

[Anonymous]

Both are white, so it can't be due to any sort of racism. Here are statistics about religion and wealth in the USA:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2016/10/11/how-income-varies-among-u-s-religious-groups/

[N192K001]

A rabbi actually wrote quite an insightful book about that: Thou Shall Prosper: The Ten Commandments for Making Money (Second Edition) by Rabbi Daniel Lapin.
https://rabbidaniellapin.com/product/thou-shall-prosper-hardcover-book/ (buy directly from his online store)
https://www.daveramsey.com/store/product/thou-shall-prosper-book-by-rabbi-lapin (from his friend, the money-guru Dave Ramsey, who's helped countless normal, average, everyday people retire as millionaires)

Having personally read the halfway through the book, I'm actually impressed by the perspectives, tips, and insights. A good number of the things he says resounds with what I personally learned while earning my Economics & Business Management degrees, plus he adds stuff from Jewish sources never mentioned in my secular textbooks.

He argues that it's not genetics (something you can't change), nepotism (something you wouldn't want to adopt if you're a decent human-being), cronyism (also delorable), etc. but attitudes, behaviors, objectives, etc. that we can change and would want to change as moral people, regardless of religion or race. (For example, we should adopt a strong desire to keep learning, be obsessed with trying to find new & better improving the lives of your customers, always look for opportunities to collaborate, etc. Truly love and be proud of your job. If your job is truly so unethical & soul-crushing, dump that job and look for something you can truly be proud of. Those are just a few of what comes t mind.)

Looking for the rabbi's explanation of his book, I've found videos even 30min.'s long. Here is the shortest (11min) when he was invited to the Christian 700 Club program for an interview on the book. (Judging from the book-cover, they may have been discussing the 1st-edition.)

https://www.youtube.com/embed/wjb7mNfgVjs

These are the longer interviews from Jewish Voice dating back to 2012 & 2011:
"Rabbi Daniel Lapin: Ten Commandments to Making Money (August 28, 2011)" (28min:47sec)

https://www.youtube.com/embed/YnojJj4tdkU

"Rabbi Daniel Lapin: Thou Shall Prosper (June 22, 2012)" (28min:30sec)

https://www.youtube.com/embed/r2Xi11I_sLc

[Asker]

That seems to suggest there are cultural reasons Jews are more economically prosperous.

[N192K001]

Yes, it does. And there seems to be 2 good benefits from this:
①Yes, their behaviors, attitudes, and thinking aren't entirely exclusive to them. This can also be found in other cultures, with some more & others less. Consider the Chinese. While people in the West say the Jews control everything, Easterners say the Chinese do. Like the Jews, no matter what country they are forced to emigrate to (back in Asia, at least), they (and/or their descendants) eventually dominate in the fields of business, politics, showbiz, etc. I also notices an overlap in behaviors, attitudes, and thinking from what I noticed in the prosperous ethnic Chinese back in the Philippines.
② Because of this, the necessary behaviors, attitudes, and thinking can be adopted even by non-Jews. Personally, I started doing adopting some of this while on a new job and noticed a jump in my revenue from customers and inadvertently got the favor of 1 of my bosses.

That said, the behaviors, attitudes, and thinking (the what) can be universal, but what is particularly Jewish is their justification or basis (the why's), generally due to some Bible verse (s) and/or documented observation (s) by legendary rabbis. Of course, a good deal of the Jews today are secular, into another religion, or somehow no longer observant in their ancestral religion, but those whose necessary behaviors, attitudes, and thinking from their upbringing haven't been disrupted enough will tend to succeed financially. Likewise, should anyone who adopts them, Jew or not.

[NamerOfStars]

What on Earth makes you think it can't be racism? Race isn't just skin color. Strictly speaking, 'race' is 'species', but even I've given up that fight. Nowadays, 'race' is 'genetically-determined demographic group'. Jews can absolutely be separated by that. Also, the whole core of Christianity is that all humans are the children of God; it has no ethnic component whatsoever. Many Catholics are black, or brown, or any skin color humans come in- ever hear of Mexico?

Of course, it's not about 'race' in any form at all, it's about history and culture. Historically, Catholics couldn't charge interest on loans because of Papal edicts. But Jews, who didn't care what the Pope said, had no such restriction. Without interest, you can't make a business of making loans. Without moneylenders, your kingdom was at a severe disadvantage over those who had them, so leaders and rulers would allow Jewish moneylenders to set up shop in their territory. When the Papal edicts ended, many long-term business had established themselves in finance, and were often headed (or at least run) by Jews, as it was often a family business that they knew and were tolerated in- which could be a hard thing to find; bigotry is not new.

Also, people keep trying to kill off the Jews. In practical terms, this was usually because a group that holds itself separate is a group that it's easy to scapegoat. A ruler who needed to distract public attention would direct their anger towards another target, and BOOM! another pogrom. And who, in a targeted demographic pogrom, is going to survive? The smart, the strong, the rich, and the adaptable. As slaughter after slaughter thins the herd, the survivors possess more and more of these traits- basic (if utterly horrifying) natural selection. Couple this with the Jewish cultural traditions of emphasizing education and knowledge, and you've got a recipe for financial success.

If this subject interests you, you might want to give Max Weber's "The Protestant Ethic And The Spirit of Capitalism" a read.

[BlueScorpio]

Probably because they save or know how to budget well unlike the US cause the USA is money hungry/greedy.

[Asker]

But even within the USA Jews make more money than Catholics.

[SuccessfulHornDog]

This is based on income so saving and budgeting aren't a factor in these stats. Its good to have those traits but this is based upon income not money in the bank or money left after paying bills

[Anonymous]

ofc. behind the scene., Jews has power to elect which person they want to be a president

[SuccessfulHornDog]

Can you please explain more about this power? How do they do that?

[Konan_Harumi_Hatano]

@SuccessfulHornDog I’m not sure how but Jews are really good at taking over behind the scenes. They’re really successful at that for some reason I’m not sure myself.

[SuccessfulHornDog]

I think it is probably because of all of the Hispanic immigrants. They're are almost all Catholic and it takes time for them to establish themselves and make a higher salary

I think that the total numbers of Catholics making over 100K is much greater than Jews and Hindus combined

[Asker]

www.pewresearch.org/.../

[SuccessfulHornDog]

I dont understand why you posted that link again. It took me to the same page as the first one you posted. Are you confused by my comment about total numbers vs percentage?

[Asker]

Sure, the total number of Catholics making over $100,000 a year in the USA, but that is because there are way more Catholics in the USA than Jews. You need to adjust per capita. Otherwise, you can say that blacks are economically better off in the USA than Swiss because there are more black millionaires than Swiss millionaires in the USA. That is probably true, but that is because there are way more blacks and Swiss, not because blacks are economically better off.

[SuccessfulHornDog]

That's correct but you're not comparing two different groups that have both been in the country for a long time and had a chance to establish themselves. Most Jews have been here for 70+ years while many Catholics came over the border on Tuesday. In addition. Many Jews live in NYC and salaries in an expensive city are simply higher than salaries in rural areas where Hispanics might settle. These are just a few variations. They are too numerous to name them all and I blame the Pew Research. I dont think that the data in the link is worth much because religion is not the cause of higher or lower salaries in the vast majority of cases.

[BCA6010]

You do realize that a huge chunk of America's Catholic population is actually of Mexican or other Hispanic descent, right? Your race-based premise is false.

[Asker]

What do you mean? What was my race based premise?

[Anonymous]

I wonder that too. I mean if we look at Catholic cultures like Italian, Irish, Mexican they do not traditionally value education and economic success while Protestant and Jewish does I don’t know why. Someone who knows history better than can probably tell me. I can say though that Jewish billionaires seem pretty scary to me like Michael Bloomberg.

[Asker]

I wonder if blacks are poorer because they value education and economic success less.

[Opinion Owner]

Perhaps among other reasons...

[Sargentcaptain]

Well the stereotype is that they are hard working people who wanna get the top paid jobs - Doctors, lawyers, politicians, bankers, entrepreneurs.

[Rangers]

Jews are very smart and always have been, Jews being upper class is nothing new

[Asker]

So generally Jews are smarter than Catholics?

[Rangers]

When you measure by success, yes

[jamesgoldman]

They have influx in big money industries like the diamond/jewellery trade at least in my personal experience

[SuccessfulHornDog]

... finance, banking, Those positions usually pay well

[_SOARER]

Because usury is forbidden under catholic doctrine. it is a sin.

[OddBeMe]

The top billionaires seem diverse enough, if you don’t count women and black people.

[Cryptic-Game]

Jewish people are usually smarter and get better paying jobs.

[coffeewithcream]

Who on earth would ask that question?

[SuccessfulHornDog]

blue anon

[Asker]

What is wrong with the question? It's a sociological question. It is no different than asking why Asians make more money than whites in the USA. www.vox.com/2016/7/6/12081082/wage-gap-race

[SuccessfulHornDog]

I am not offended by the question in any way. I answered it as a serious question. I did make a blue anon joke at your expense but that's nothing

[asshole_]

Because we tend to be cheap

[SuccessfulHornDog]

As I pointed out to another poster, these stats are about income. Its not about how you spend it or save it.

[asshole_]

If you don't spend a lot, that means you're cheap

That's why trump, and his cronies, are so rich. They DONT SPEND

[SuccessfulHornDog]

Are you saying that Trump is Jewish?

[asshole_]

Nope

[hknmhmn4]

I heard that the most richest families are Jews

[Reamer]

They dont..

[Asker]

www.pewresearch.org/.../

[Reamer]

Do you need me to explain how you are looking at that date vs an othere perspective?

[SuccessfulHornDog]

I agree, race, geography (city/urban vs suburban) cost of living are all possible variants that are hidden by this report. Its really not a helpful report overall

[Reamer]

Not only that there are 14x the amount of catholic, and as much as pew is a good source there are a lot of Jewish counitys that dont like being counted, and they tend to be lower on the economic scale, after that you have to look at % that are 1st or 2nd generation American, vs famly that are established.

[Asker]

Yes, I would like you to explain. How I am misreading the data? It seems that Jews make more on average than Catholics in the USA. Obviously, there are way more Catholics in the USA. That doesn't change anything. 44% of Jews of make over $100,000. 19% of Catholics do. It doesn't matter if there are 10,000 or 100,000 or 1,000,000 of either. The percentages would be consistent.