In the USA, does living in poverty or being oppressed by the government limit the income of grandchildren if no longer oppressed by the government?

Question

The median income among Japanese American households was $90,000 in 2022.  In 2022, households headed by Vietnamese immigrants (primarily boat people) had a median income of $81,000, compared to $75,000 for U. S.-born households.

Bklynbadboy12 · Accepted Answer

Im a black man in America so I can honestly say it doesn't. Life in America is what you make it. If educate yourself and work hard like me you can do very well for yourself

AviatorTom · Accepted Answer

No, the quoted numbers prove that isn't the case. In the US, a person can be successful if they work hard.

abc3643 · Answer

Being successful in life is a function of your starting point. There's no doubt about it. In fact, billionaire Warren Buffet calls it "The Ovarian Lottery". That doesn't mean you won't be successful, but, statistically, the better your start in life, the better you will be later in life.
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https://conversableeconomist.com/2022/11/25/warren-buffett-on-the-ovarian-lottery/

Warren Buffett on the Ovarian Lottery

Warren Buffett used to talk from time to time about the implications of what he called “the ovarian lottery”–the random accident of why you were born with one time, place, and identity rather than another.

It’s not a new idea. Some of you will know it as a version of what the philosopher John Rawls was talking about in his 1971 book A Theory of Justice when he discussed how justice required making decisions behind a “veil of ignorance.” Going back further, it’s version of what Adam Smith was talking about in 1759 in his first classic book The Moral Sentiments, when he discusses morality as evaluated by an “impartial spectator”–a hypothetical someone who not personally involved with the specific situation under discussion. There are of course differences in how this idea is used in each case, but overall notion is that to make a fair or moral evaluation, you need to remove yourself personally from the situation, so that you instead can imagine what it would be fair or ethical if you did not know what role you might end up playing.

Buffett’s telling is vivid in its own way, and focuses on his feelings of gratitude and thankfulness. Here, I’m quoting from the transcript of a question-and-answer session Warren Buffett had with a group of business school students at the University of Florida in 1998:

I have been extraordinarily lucky. I mean, I use this example and I will take a minute or two because I think it is worth thinking about a little bit. Let’s just assume it was 24 hours before you were born and a genie came to you and he said, “Herb, you look very promising and I have a big problem. I got to design the world in which you are going to live in. I have decided it is too tough; you design it. … You say, “I can design anything? There must be a catch?” The genie says there is a catch. You don’t know if you are going to be born black or white, rich or poor, male or female, infirm or able-bodied, bright or retarded. All you know is you are going to take one ball out of a barrel with 5.8 billion (balls). You are going to participate in the ovarian lottery. And that is going to be the most important thing in your life, because that is going to control whether you are born here or in Afghanistan or whether you are born with an IQ of 130 or an IQ of 70. It is going to determine a whole lot. What type of world are you going to design?

I think it is a good way to look at social questions, because not knowing which ball you are going to get, you are going to want to design a system that is going to provide lots of goods and services because you want people on balance to live well. And you want it to produce more and more so your kids live better than you do and your grandchildren live better than their parents. But you also want a system that does produce lots of goods and services that does not leave behind a person who accidentally got the wrong ball and is not well wired for this particular system.

I am ideally wired for the system I fell into here. I came out and got into something that enables me to allocate capital. Nothing so wonderful about that. If all of us were stranded on a desert island somewhere and we were never going to get off of it, the most valuable person there would be the one who could raise the most rice over time. I can say, “I can allocate capital!” You wouldn’t be very excited about that. So I have been born in the right place. [Bill] Gates says that if I had been born three million years ago, I would have been some animal’s lunch. He says, “You can’t run very fast, you can’t climb trees, you can’t do anything.” You would just be chewed up the first day. You are lucky; you were born today. And I am.

The question getting back, here is this barrel with 6.5 billion balls, everybody in the world, if you could put your ball back, and they took out at random a 100 balls and you had to pick one of those, would you put your ball back in? Now those 100 balls you are going to get out, roughly 5 of them will be American, 95/5. So if you want to be in this country, you will only have 5 balls, half of them will be women and half men–I will let you decide how you will vote on that one. Half of them will below average in intelligence and half above average in intelligence. Do you want to put your ball in there? Most of you will not want to put your ball back to get 100. So what you are saying is: I am in the luckiest one percent of the world right now sitting in this room–the top one percent of the world.

Well, that is the way I feel. I am lucky to be born where I was because it was 50 to 1 in the United States when I was born. I have been lucky with parents, lucky with all kinds of things and lucky to be wired in a way that in a market economy, pays off like crazy for me. It doesn’t pay off as well for someone who is absolutely as good a citizen as I am (by) leading Boy Scout troops, teaching Sunday School or whatever, raising fine families, but just doesn’t happen to be wired in the same way that I am. So I have been extremely lucky.

I suppose it’s easy to feel “extremely lucky” if your name is near the top for the richest person in the world! But I too have been lucky in parents, lucky in marriage, lucky in good health, lucky in job, lucky to live in a time and place when being near-sighted and bookish could lead to upper middle-class economic security, lucky to live in a time and place with considerable freedom and not wrecked by war. My list of “meaningful life advice” is pretty short. But for me, “count your blessings” is high on the list.

Anonymous · Answer

No. I don’t think it does. As a Native American I’ve done pretty well for myself. A lot of my cousins on the other hand not so much, but their mentality is it’s always the white man. What whitey did to our ancestors, that’s why according to them they can’t move ahead in life. But they won’t mention how often they go to the bar, especially on the weekend. They have money to go out, buy expensive shoes, eat out a lot but for some reason they don’t have money for things like vacations. So I will hear them once in a while say something about me being on vacation again. But they fail to realize I work a lot of OT, sometimes up to 40 hours every two weeks. It’s all mental. If a person is always going to play the victim, they will never get ahead. I don’t see how people can’t make money these days, especially w having the internet where you can reach millions of people everyday on numerous platforms.

NaultD · Answer

It's just called an inheritance or generational wealth. It's more about your influence 200 years old vs being born and expecting the same outcomes.

My parents died early not even 50. Left me and my brother half a million each. Lottery changing amount of money don't you think. This is well over 100 years of min making money saving. From my parents dying I'm 80% richest person alive.

I still can't quit day job. People work there entire life and save for 5 million to retire and I'm doing the same exact thing and with recent news stock drops I'm going to work till I drop dead with this bountiful gift.

It's not even being in poverty but doing everything right for 3 generations isn't good anymore. Your father needs slave labor in emerald mines to even bullshit a meaningful that makes you cry yourself to sleep at night.

MisterWack · Answer

Generally, yes.

Compare being in a good family household -> paying for child’s good education -> child becomes successful in their field -> grandchildren reap rewards by having even or more wealth to get good education from parents.

If you are in poverty, without government assistance like ‘DEI’ programs it can be harder to achieve a lot since more better off children will have more applications therefore more acceptances compared to poverty. Without good funds, it can be tough to lift yourself up by your bootstraps (the way the rich see it, even when the rich aren’t ‘self made’ exactly since more if not all had a connection to wealth / connections to people in power prior to building an empire).

lightbulb27 · Answer

No with a caveat.

Most I've seen.. kids have all sorts of opportunity and can become very weatlhy in one generation.

Caveat... it is the emotional traumas within the family and environment passed on that oppress the kids. Can see that in African American communities but others as well and here and there. Lots of kids suffer under the tor**** of the crimes of the past, failed parenting and abuse.

SixFootSexy · Answer

Because of internalized trauma, as well as generational slave mentality. Every generation has the opportunity to break the cycles, but it doesn't mean they will.

Snakeyes7 · Answer

If the same opportunities are there for everyone by the time the grandchildren came around, then no. Everything that they don't accomplish is more than likely their own fault.

D_Bone_Steak · Answer

Cool. Can I see the statistics for African Americans? I need a good comparison.

DrPepper12 · Answer

Poverty is generational for a variety of reasons. There is ALWAYS an obstacle for individuals that are minorities no matter how successful as a group.

Anonymous · Answer

The American dream is that your circumstances at birth don't dictate the circumstances of your life. We haven't fully realized that for everyone, but we are a lot closer to its realization than when we were founded.

Ladsin2 · Answer

No, it doesn't as noted by any ethnicity other than blacks. Which are somewhat suspect I suppose.

Jennz6 · Answer

I don’t get it

exitseven · Answer

No, the US does not work like that.

SmokinAces2000 · Answer

That depends on varying factors

msc545 · Answer

It might, yes.

wkhan_87 · Answer

Are there poverty in USA also?

PaleDale · Answer

I don't think so

Anonymous · Answer

No..

In the USA, does living in poverty or being oppressed by the government limit the income of grandchildren if no longer oppressed by the government?

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