Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[helene_t]

Is household income a better measure than per capita, or at least per worker, income?

We had a nice discussion a few years ago about the use of income/sqrt(householdsize) as a metric. Something like that is probably reasonable - the needs of a 4-person household is bigger than that of a 1-person household, but not four times as big.

[Zelandakh]

Do you have any suggestions on how we might improve the educational system, other than throwing more money at it or redistributing the current money? Or do you think the current systems are just fine the way they are?

You are not listening, or perhaps just do not want to hear the message. The main reason why the averages are down is because of underfunded schools at the bottom end. To improve the average, this situation needs to be improved. The amount you gain from improving these schools is light years beyond what you lose from reducing funding slightly from the overfunded high-performing schools. Once you have the funding sorted out, you can more easily address questions about overarching policy. Recently the Finnish model was mentioned in a WC thread for example. No doubt there are lessons to be learned from the success there that could be adapted to the US. Obviously such a model would not work if there were not serious improvements in the underfunded schools though. That is essentially one of the problems with recent education policy as far as I can see - various initiatives have been tried but they are mostly there as a means of distracting attention from the real issue, particularly in the poor districts of red states. Perhaps Elianna has some ideas of policies that might be generally successful even without sorting out the funding but it seems unlikely that the situation can ever really be fully rectified without addressing this fundamental issue.

[Zelandakh]

We had a nice discussion a few years ago about the use of income/sqrt(householdsize) as a metric. Something like that is probably reasonable - the needs of a 4-person household is bigger than that of a 1-person household, but not four times as big.

Is square root a better measure than taking the Number of Adults and adding a factor for children based on their age? I would guess the real figure is somewhere in the middle although to some extent it depends on how much the household eats, etc together. Some households work as a family and have excellent group savings whilst others operate with almost no discount over living separately. If such factors could be predicted it would be possible to produce much more useful statistics.

[helene_t]

Is square root a better measure than taking the Number of Adults and adding a factor for children based on their age? I would guess the real figure is somewhere in the middle although to some extent it depends on how much the household eats, etc together. Some households work as a family and have excellent group savings whilst others operate with almost no discount over living separately. If such factors could be predicted it would be possible to produce much more useful statistics.

Ideally, maybe, someone would find the function of household composition and income that correlates strongly with income-related social outcomes such as the ability to afford healthy food for the whole household etc. This would lead to "house-hold-composition adjusted median income", similar to age-adjusted mortality and purchasing power parities.

 

This is only useful if it can be established as a standard so that statistics can be compared between years and between countries.

 

It is a bit tricky to define exactly what a "household" is. What to do with students who register for some purposes at their parents' address and for other purposes at their own address? What to do with shared households (communes) which don't share food but do share kitchenware and utility bills?

 

OTOH, individual income is also a bit tricky. Does a housewife or other financially dependants really have zero income?

[kenberg]

Ideally, maybe, someone would find the function of household composition and income that correlates strongly with income-related social outcomes such as the ability to afford healthy food for the whole household etc. This would lead to "house-hold-composition adjusted median income", similar to age-adjusted mortality and purchasing power parities.

 

This is only useful if it can be established as a standard so that statistics can be compared between years and between countries.

 

It is a bit tricky to define exactly what a "household" is. What to do with students who register for some purposes at their parents' address and for other purposes at their own address? What to do with shared households (communes) which don't share food but do share kitchenware and utility bills?

 

OTOH, individual income is also a bit tricky. Does a housewife or other financially dependents really have zero income?

 

When "household income" resurfaced here, the first thing I did was to see if the figures had this square root adjustment. In that discussion of a few years ago, I initially misunderstood, not realizing the figures presented then were adjust ed by this square root. In the figures we have now, I think the figures are unadjusted. So first off, it is important in any of these things to say what the figures actually measure.

 

 

But now what to make of them.

 

From

http://economistsout...y-vs-household/

 

 

Impact of Age:

While the median household income is $51,371 in the US, this varies by age. Households with heads under 25 years old have a median income of $24,476 compared to $55,821 for those with heads aged 25 to 44 years old. Households headed by those aged 45 to 64 have the highest median incomes of $62,049, but those 65 and over have a median income of $36,743.

 

Impact of HH Size/Family Size:

For both households and families, there is a notable difference in typical income by size. While it is reasonable, to expect some causal relationship between age and income, the trend by size is likely a reflection of other causal patterns that happen to coincide with size.

 

For households, the impact is most seen between 1 and 2-person households. Median income for a one-person household is $27,237 while typical income for a two-person household is $58,121. Median income rises as household size increases, peaking at 4-person households with a median income of $75,343. For 5 or more person households, median income ranges from $64,747 to $69.691. In families, we see a similar pattern except that, by definition, there are no 1-person families. Median income for a two-person family is $56,646 and rises, peaking at $76,049 for 4-person families. From that point, median income declines to between $64,478 and $70,403 for larger families.

 

 

 

Start with "Median income for a one-person household is $27,237 while typical income for a two-person household is $58,121." If the two person household consisted of two adults, having the income double (slightly more than double) might, at first glance, sound right. Both work, and perhaps loners are not as successful as people who share a place, so sounds reasonable. But no, that's not at all what is going on. Many of those two person households consist of one adult and one child. The income for that household is presumably like the income for a one person household, except maybe less because the need for child care sometimes holds back professional advancement. And what about the one person households? There are 24 year old singles, my granddaughter for example, and there are eighty year old widows and widowers. And, for that matter, my granddaughter shares a house with something like five other young women. Is that one household or six households? One, I think. If so, that should bring up the 6 person household incomes, even though they are at the beginning of their careers since I believe they all have full time jobs.

 

 

So probably the median income for a two person adult household is a good deal more than double the median income for a one person household, and probably the median income for a one adult-one child household is close to the median income for a one person household. Or maybe less.

 

 

And so on. I have no idea why family income peaks at 76K for a family of size four. Higher income goes with higher education, and higher education goes with delayed child bearing? Maybe. Or maybe if a couple plans a large family they also plan to have the mother (ok one parent but usually it is the mother) stay at home? Beats me.

 

 

Data is no doubt useful, but handle with care.

[ldrews]

You are not listening, or perhaps just do not want to hear the message. The main reason why the averages are down is because of underfunded schools at the bottom end. To improve the average, this situation needs to be improved. The amount you gain from improving these schools is light years beyond what you lose from reducing funding slightly from the overfunded high-performing schools. Once you have the funding sorted out, you can more easily address questions about overarching policy. Recently the Finnish model was mentioned in a WC thread for example. No doubt there are lessons to be learned from the success there that could be adapted to the US. Obviously such a model would not work if there were not serious improvements in the underfunded schools though. That is essentially one of the problems with recent education policy as far as I can see - various initiatives have been tried but they are mostly there as a means of distracting attention from the real issue, particularly in the poor districts of red states. Perhaps Elianna has some ideas of policies that might be generally successful even without sorting out the funding but it seems unlikely that the situation can ever really be fully rectified without addressing this fundamental issue.

 

Color me skeptical, but I have seldom seen any societal problem solved by throwing more money at it. Or by simply redistributing existing money.

 

Since I come from the science/engineering/computer disciplines, I would like to see actual measurements of outcomes to justify continuing or additional expenditures. You seem to be of the opinion that the basic problem is underfinancing of certain schools. But since the US currently has the highest per student financing of the 11 countries compared in my earlier post and yet has less than average performance in math and science, I still remain skeptical.

 

So, can we come up with a definition of what our goals for education are, how to measure if we are achieving those goals, and what remedial actions we should take to improve our results? This would include determining what effects changes in financing have on actual results. Or we could content ourselves with making ideological arguments and change nothing.

[ldrews]

The main reason why the averages are down is because of underfunded schools at the bottom end

 

Another thing to consider is that school funding is a local community decision. If the local schools are underfunded then the local community must be unwilling to fund them "properly". Who are we to tell them they are wrong? It is their decision, isn't it?

[y66]

From Real median Income Rose 5.2 Percent (September 2016) by Tyler Cowen

 

That is great news of course. Do note however the following (NYT):

The median household income is still 1.6 percent lower than in 2007, before the recession. It also remains 2.4 percent lower than the all-time peak reached during the economic boom of the late 1990s.

Even with this unexpected and quite remarkable income gain, America is close to having gone twenty years without a significant money pay hike for its middle class category.

 

And do note this: two days ago, everyone was saying things felt OK but still sluggish, and they were citing mounds of evidence on behalf of this view. Maybe they still are right, don’t overreact to a single number. You don’t have to be a “negative Nellie” to think it doesn’t feel like a world of five percent wage growth.

 

As a separate point, note that essentially none of those income gains went to rural areas. That meant a 7.4% wage gain for larger cities — does this raise the import of the case for deregulating building?

From Our Economic Problems Are in Sectors, Not the System (2014) by Tyler Cowen

 

There is in fact a problem with stagnant wages in today’s developed economies. But in the United States for instance much of the problem lies in our low productivity health and education sectors, which raise the cost of living for everybody, plus the high cost of renting or buying in desirable urban areas and in good school districts.

 

Better and cheaper services are equivalent to a boost in real wages and income, so solving these problems would go a long way toward improving living standards. It also would make income inequality less objectionable, because the real issue should be low living standards at the bottom of the scale, not the gains at the top.

 

The problems are very often rooted in our imperfect institutions, such as lack of accountability in our schools, and a health care system which combines the worst properties of public and private sector incentives, leading to more expensive service and lower quality and access. Less zoning and more high-density construction would ease the housing budgets of many lower-income Americans.

Improving education, health care and the availability of housing are keys to improving real wages not keeping Carrier jobs in Indiana and immigrants out of our country?

[hrothgar]

Another thing to consider is that school funding is a local community decision. If the local schools are underfunded then the local community must be unwilling to fund them "properly". Who are we to tell them they are wrong? It is their decision, isn't it?

 

Agreed. Damn poor choice those folks made deciding to be born poor...

 

(For the record, the decision to make school funding a "local decision" is a decision that states make to avoid having to spend waste money educating minority students)

[Zelandakh]

Start with "Median income for a one-person household is $27,237 while typical income for a two-person household is $58,121." If the two person household consisted of two adults, having the income double (slightly more than double) might, at first glance, sound right. Both work, and perhaps loners are not as successful as people who share a place, so sounds reasonable. But no, that's not at all what is going on. Many of those two person households consist of one adult and one child.

Are you sure Ken? The way that summary was laid out it sounded like a 2 person HH was 2 adults and a 2-person family was an adult and a child. But without going into it further it is difficult to say.

 

Ldrews, your last response seems to be typical red state obfuscation. It is "obviously" not that they choose to neglect poor (mostly minority) schools, just bad luck that they happen to divide those areas up that way so that there is no cash available. Puh-lease. You might be a conservative/white supremacist* but I would hope that you are not quite that stupid/naive/ignorant*.

 

* delete as appropriate

[kenberg]

Are you sure Ken? The way that summary was laid out it sounded like a 2 person HH was 2 adults and a 2-person family was an adult and a child. But without going into it further it is difficult to say.

 

From the same source:

 

Typical income can be measured in a variety of ways. Analysts often use median household income to indicate what is typical. In 2012, data showed median household income was $51,371 in the US. For families, median income in the US in 2012 was $62,527 [1].

 

This may have you wondering, “What’s the difference?” The Census Bureau provides these two data points and has a concise explanation on the FAQ page for one of their surveys [2]: “A family consists of two or more people (one of whom is the householder) related by birth, marriage, or adoption residing in the same housing unit. A household consists of all people who occupy a housing unit regardless of relationship. A household may consist of a person living alone or multiple unrelated individuals or families living together.

 

 

To me, this says that a two person family household is also a two person household. I am focusing on the "regardless of relationship". I take this to mean a pair of cohabiting clones is a HH, and a pair of cohabiting strangers is a HH, as is anything in between. But as to am I sure, well, no.

 

 

 

[ldrews]

Ldrews, your last response seems to be typical red state obfuscation. It is "obviously" not that they choose to neglect poor (mostly minority) schools, just bad luck that they happen to divide those areas up that way so that there is no cash available. Puh-lease. You might be a conservative/white supremacist* but I would hope that you are not quite that stupid/naive/ignorant*.

 

All of the places in the US that I have lived (about 15), school funding was paid primarily by county property taxes. The school funding was established by a county wide vote at various time intervals. So the level of funding was decided, at the county level, by the voters. So the choice was made by those same voters. If the funding is inadequate, please take it up with those same voters.

 

If funding was a statewide issue then you would have an argument. In fact I believe the Federal Courts have imposed some statewide revisions of funding based on constitutional grounds. I believe those additional funds do come from the state level.

 

But if you do support local rule, then the unequal funding, while regrettable, stands. Otherwise, in my opinion, you violate local rule and impose other's beliefs and policies from above. If one does not support local rule, then where do you draw the line? State level? Federal level? International level? Seems like one could make a case for all of them.

 

However, sans constitutional infractions, educational activities are reserved to the states as prescribed in the Constitution. Right?

[ldrews]

Ldrews, your last response seems to be typical red state obfuscation. It is "obviously" not that they choose to neglect poor (mostly minority) schools, just bad luck that they happen to divide those areas up that way so that there is no cash available. Puh-lease. You might be a conservative/white supremacist* but I would hope that you are not quite that stupid/naive/ignorant*.

 

So my belief is that funding, per se, is not the problem. A broken, non-functioning delivery system is the problem.

 

But how can we satisfy both the funding inequities and fix the delivery system?

 

How about this:

 

• Establish a statewide level of funding per student per year
  
• Provide that funding to the parents and/or student via a voucher
  
• Allow the parents and/or student to select the educational vehicle to which the funding is disbursed (any educational vehicle that can show a minimum percentage of students passing a national competency test)
  
• At the Federal level, establish a nation wide competency test in base core subjects
  
• Require any institution receiving federal funding to accept the passing of the competency test as equivalent to a high school diploma
  

 

This approach equalizes funding at the state level, provides parents/students the opportunity to select an appropriate educational vehicle, allows for innovation in educational vehicles without requiring political/governmental approval, provides a standard against which all educational vehicles can be measured, and ensures a base level of competency for those that pass the test.

 

And there are already national organizations that can prepare, vet, and administer such tests (Scholastic Aptitude Test administers).

[jogs]

Is household income a better measure than per capita, or at least per worker, income?

Per capita is distorted. Income distribution is the most skewed since 1929. Easy money has been a boom for the wealthy.

 

In the 60's Hollywood, pop music stars, and athletes weren't as overpaid as they are now. In the fifties some baseball players didn't even own cars. They were only paid 2 to 3 times average salary. In 2016 29 baseball players were paid more than LeBron(highest paid basketball player).

[Elianna]

All of the places in the US that I have lived (about 15), school funding was paid primarily by county property taxes. The school funding was established by a county wide vote at various time intervals. So the level of funding was decided, at the county level, by the voters. So the choice was made by those same voters. If the funding is inadequate, please take it up with those same voters.

 

Read https://www.amazon.com/Savage-Inequalities-Children-Americas-Schools/dp/0770435688/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1484177696&sr=8-1&keywords=kozol+jonathan.+savage+inequalities+children+in+america+s+schools

 

One of the astonishing (or perhaps not so astonishing) facts is that many poor communities actually set HIGHER property tax rates to fund education than richer communities, but it still leads to lower amounts of money per student.

 

For example, take two high school districts. One is in a richer neighborhood that has much more expensive homes and the other has cheaper homes (and considered a "worse neighborhood"). If each home in the "rich" district was valued at 2.4+ million dollars (the median home price in, say, Palo Alto) and taxed at r%, I leave it to you to work out what tax rate needs to be set for homes in the cheaper area (let's say East Palo Alto - a separate school district whose median home price is 730,000).

 

And if you think that this could be overcome by having more homes in the poorer neighborhoods, remember that with more homes come more children (and therefore students) and so that doesn't help the amount of money a public school gets per student.

 

So yes, people could vote to raise property tax. But by your reasoning - it's poor people's fault that they're not at the same school funding level as rich people - they should raise property taxes to be more than three times the rate!

[hrothgar]

How about this:

 

• Establish a statewide level of funding per student per year
  
• Provide that funding to the parents and/or student via a voucher
  
• Allow the parents and/or student to select the educational vehicle to which the funding is disbursed (any educational vehicle that can show a minimum percentage of students passing a national competency test)
  
• At the Federal level, establish a nation wide competency test in base core subjects
  
• Require any institution receiving federal funding to accept the passing of the competency test as equivalent to a high school diploma
  

 

 

Where to begin:

 

1. Voucher systems started as a more politically correct version of the segregation academies that sprung up all across the South. They aren't much better today.

2. "School choice" sounds really good until you realize that most parents aren't optimizing based on the quality of the education that their children receive, rather they are trying to perpetuate socio and religious norms

3. Seems that we have an awful lot of evidence that the easiest way for schools to make sure that the score well on national competency tests is a combination of cheating on the tests and refusing to admit at risk students.

4. I am all for national education standards, however, last time I checked people didn't seem to much like the common core.

5. Seems that we already have the GED.

[kenberg]

Read https://www.amazon.c...erica+s+schools

 

One of the astonishing (or perhaps not so astonishing) facts is that many poor communities actually set HIGHER property tax rates to fund education than richer communities, but it still leads to lower amounts of money per student.

 

For example, take two high school districts. One is in a richer neighborhood that has much more expensive homes and the other has cheaper homes (and considered a "worse neighborhood"). If each home in the "rich" district was valued at 2.4+ million dollars (the median home price in, say, Palo Alto) and taxed at r%, I leave it to you to work out what tax rate needs to be set for homes in the cheaper area (let's say East Palo Alto - a separate school district whose median home price is 730,000).

 

And if you think that this could be overcome by having more homes in the poorer neighborhoods, remember that with more homes come more children (and therefore students) and so that doesn't help the amount of money a public school gets per student.

 

So yes, people could vote to raise property tax. But by your reasoning - it's poor people's fault that they're not at the same school funding level as rich people - they should raise property taxes to be more than three times the rate!

 

This does not match up with some things I thought I knew, so I checked a bit.

 

There is data from Maryland at https://conduitstreet.mdcounties.org/2016/04/26/chart-shows-marylands-school-funding-per-student/

 

The counties that I have the longest experience with are Prince Georges (the Univ of Md is there), Montgomery, and Howard. Howard and Montgomery are significantly wealthier than PG. Local support (via property taxes) in PG is far less that the support in Mont. and Howard. State and Federal help bring PG and Mont together, Howard spends more. Howard and Mont are high performers, PG does badly..

 

Back when Calif had Proposition whatever iit was to cap the property tax rate, PG passed similar. law. I believe they have recently, with great effort,by some, partially gotten around that.

 

I have to run but I will try to check this more thoroughly later.

[ldrews]

So yes, people could vote to raise property tax. But by your reasoning - it's poor people's fault that they're not at the same school funding level as rich people - they should raise property taxes to be more than three times the rate!

 

I make no such reasoning. I do not place fault on anyone. I have simply described the current mechanism for funding.

 

What is your solution to the funding inequality? Do you tax everyone in the state more and give the additional tax money to the underfunded schools? But then wouldn't you be raising taxes on the residents of the poorer districts disproportionately? Or would you institute a more progressive tax on the wealthier residents in order to subsidize the poorer? How is that fair? And if you raise taxes on the affluent citizens, don't you encourage them to move elsewhere, taking all of their tax revenue with them? (see California)

 

I moved my family and business out of California many years ago for that very reason.

[Winstonm]

Per capita is distorted. Income distribution is the most skewed since 1929. Easy money has been a boom for the wealthy.

 

 

 

I don't get it. You understand this yet you support a wealthy capitalist who want to reduce taxes even further on the rich and skew the income distribution even more. What gives?

[Winstonm]

And if you raise taxes on the affluent citizens, don't you encourage them to move elsewhere, taking all of their tax revenue with them? (see California)

 

I moved my family and business out of California many years ago for that very reason.

 

This would only apply to state taxes - if the taxes were applied on a national basis there would be no where to move that would be different. Perhaps each state should impose a move tariff on people fleeing the state for lower taxes. B-)

[ldrews]

This would only apply to state taxes - if the taxes were applied on a national basis there would be no where to move that would be different. Perhaps each state should impose a move tariff on people fleeing the state for lower taxes. B-)

 

Isn't education (and funding) a state right, per the Constitution? So national funding would require an amendment to the Constitution?

 

Wow, a state exit tax! Pretty sure that doesn't pass constitutional muster either.

[hrothgar]

I make no such reasoning. I do not place fault on anyone. I have simply described the current mechanism for funding.

 

What is your solution to the funding inequality? Do you tax everyone in the state more and give the additional tax money to the underfunded schools? But then wouldn't you be raising taxes on the residents of the poorer districts disproportionately? Or would you institute a more progressive tax on the wealthier residents in order to subsidize the poorer? How is that fair? And if you raise taxes on the affluent citizens, don't you encourage them to move elsewhere, taking all of their tax revenue with them? (see California)

 

 

I strongly believe that that there is a minimum funding level that all students need to receive.

Some minor adjustments would probably be necessary to compensate for differences in the cost of living per state, special needs, and the like.

 

Furthermore, I believe that this needs to be done on a federal level.

You shouldn't be *****ed over for life because you are unlucky enough to be born in the South.

 

On the funding side, I strongly believe in progressive taxation.

 

Yes, there will be some people who flee the country as you have.

 

C'est le vie. If they love their filthy lucre more than they care about the country, then we're better off with out them.

(More seriously, having ex pats spending their income in the developing world is probably a good thing for the international economy)

 

Just don't try lecturing me about life in America when you cut and run...

[kenberg]

I favor strong financial support of schools. We also need to take seriously the argument that that's not the whole story.

 

I posted the following for spending

 

https://conduitstree...ng-per-student/

 

Here is a list of results.

 

https://k12.niche.com/rankings/public-school-districts/best-overall/s/maryland/

 

There are 24 districts

 

Howard, Montgomery, Fredeerick and Carroll come in first, second, third and fourth for results. They come in fifth, seventh, twentieth and seventeenth in spending.

 

Worchester comes in first in spending, sixth in results. More dramatically, Baltimore is second in spending, last in results. Prince George's is sixth in spending, 21st out of 24 in results.

 

As always, I only trust data so far. Details matter. But this seems adequate to show that funding is not the whole story. If we are going to address the critical issue of educating the kids, surely it will require money. But we also need to make sure we get a good return on what is spent.

[Zelandakh]

If you are going to use test results to produce league tables for schools then it really needs to be done properly. To assess a school I would suggest a comparison with their final results against the results of their final tests in the previous school would be appropriate. If this were done it might also help to avoid the issue of schools refusing to take low-performing pupils because these would negatively impact their league position.

[hrothgar]

As always, I only trust data so far. Details matter. But this seems adequate to show that funding is not the whole story. If we are going to address the critical issue of educating the kids, surely it will require money. But we also need to make sure we get a good return on what is spent.

 

I was lucky enough to grow up in a family with two parents, both of whom were actively engaged with me, read to me every day, and instilled a life long love of learning.

 

I am guessing that educating me to some basic level of academic proficiency would be a HELL of a lot cheaper than trying to do the same for a kid who had a single parent working a minimum wage job who didn't have the time or the energy to provide the same benefits to their children.

 

The entire notion that it is going to cost the same to educate kids in communities that have been devastated by years of neglect is absolutely ridiculous.

 

And, once more, when you are doing comparisons across counties you need to factor in issues like how much of that money is being spent of school lunches, guidance and heath, and other such welfare programs.