Re: faux conservatism: leave every family behind

[aburke5054@aol.com]

The Pew report says  ...

"Two out of three Americans have higher incomes than their parents, 
while one third are falling behind. The current generation of adults is 
better off than the previous one, because of real income growth..."  It 
also says that most children born to parents in the lowest rung of 
income are in a higher category as adults. The report suggests uneven 
progress for African-Americans and does not mention Hispanic and Latino 
Americans at all, but all in all the the report shows a rising tide.  
The interpretation that every family is falling behind is simply 
unfounded, as is much of what appears on ARN.

Art


-----Original Message-----
From: qcao009@aol.com
To: arn-l@interversity.org
Sent: Wed, 14 Nov 2007 10:25 am
Subject: [arn-l] faux conservatism: leave every family behind
i

The GOP's Pocketbook Issue

By Michael Gerson
Wednesday, November 14, 2007; A19




Republicans have spent years wondering when Americans will finally wake 
up and
realize they are actually happy about the state of the economy.

A slowdown may now be in the offing, but that does not explain why the 
credit
has never rolled in for six years of uninterrupted economic growth or 
the
creation of more than 8 million jobs since August 2003. Has an 
exhausting war
overwhelmed the upbeat economic news? Has the public just been in a 
sour mood
this decade?

A series of scrupulously bipartisan new studies by the Economic 
Mobility Project
of the Pew Charitable Trusts hints at an answer -- and the explanation 
is not a
funk but a fact. Even in a growing economy, only about a third of 
Americans can
be considered upwardly mobile -- meaning they will end up with more
inflation-adjusted income and a higher relative economic standing than 
did their
parents. The rest are maintaining their standing or falling behind; 
about
one-third slip down the income scale over the course of a generation.

When specific groups are considered, the news is even more unsettling. 
Men in
their 30s have experienced a sustained slide in their 
inflation-adjusted
incomes, which fell by 12 percent between 1974 and 2004.

And most shocking of all: About 45 percent of middle-income African 
American
children end up falling to the bottom of the income scale over a 
generation,
compared with 16 percent of white children -- meaning that even solidly
middle-class African American families lead fragile economic lives.

According to the Pew studies, America has less upward economic mobility 
than
Denmark, Canada or Finland. "In America, more than other countries," 
says
project director John Morton, "the circumstances of your birth have 
more to say
about where you end up than how we tend to think of ourselves."

Over the decades, families have gradually adapted to these economic 
trends. They
often have added a second income -- the proportion of married women who 
are in
the workforce has gone from 23 percent in 1950 to 70 percent today. And 
families
have become smaller, spreading their resources among fewer children in 
need of
food, clothing and cellphones.

But in other ways, Americans have not responded very well to the 
incentives of
the new economic world.

A four-year college degree is now necessary just to tread economic 
water, and
only a professional or graduate degree reliably ensures wage growth. 
But while
college enrollment for men is up, graduation rates have recently 
declined.

And even though African American families "need more than ever to have 
two
incomes," says Morton, "we are seeing a decline in the number of 
two-income
families." Low marriage rates contribute to low incomes.

These trends make a certain amount of long-term economic discontent 
perfectly
rational. They also represent a challenge to conservative ideology.
Conservatives rightly reject a leveling equality as a social goal, 
which can
only be imposed by coercion at a tremendous cost to human liberty and 
human
flourishing. But in the absence of economic equality, economic mobility 
becomes
an essential moral commitment. When a society has neither equality nor 
mobility,
it is an aristocracy. Conservatism accepts inequality as an economic 
fact of
life -- but it cannot accept the existence of a class-ridden society 
where
inequality is hereditary and permanent.

There are large reasons for these economic trends that have little to 
do with
the economic policies of any single administration. Global competition 
has
deprived America of many lower-skill, higher-paying manufacturing jobs. 
Rising
powers such as China and India are preparing industriously to compete 
with
Americans for higher-skill, high-tech jobs as well. No matter who is 
elected the
next president, American workers will need to be highly educated, 
willing to
change jobs often and prepared to move where new jobs emerge.

Republicans will not solve this problem, but they need at least to 
address it.
And this requires a message beyond lower taxes and spending restraint. 
The
candidates will need creative proposals to reform a health-care system 
that is a
drag on entrepreneurship; to make a college education more affordable; 
to
encourage savings, ownership and financial literacy, which make 
economic gains
less tenuous; even to encourage economic mobility in the context of 
stronger
families.

Republican presidential candidates often talk of a return to Reaganism 
-- and,
in one sense, it is needed. Ronald Reagan won elections by responding 
forcefully
to the economic challenges of his time -- inflation and 70 percent tax 
rates.
Republicans need to show the same capacity to speak to the largest 
economic
challenge of our moment -- the recovery of economic mobility.

Michael Gerson is the author of "Heroic Conservatism." His e-mail 
address
ismichaelgerson@cfr.org.

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