Movin' on Up! How George Jefferson Succeeded

The Jeffersons

Remember “The Jeffersons”? The black family that lived next door to Archie Bunker on “All in the Family” became so popular that Norman Lear spun them off to their own show wherein family patriarch George Jefferson, an upwardly mobile entrepreneur, moved up to “a dee-lux apartment in the sky” where they were the only black family.

George was bombastic, quick-tempered and politically incorrect much like Archie Bunker.  The new show exposed the bigotry of the white upper class of the time but also gave voice to the reverse bigotry of Archie’s mirror image. 

Jefferson succeeded by guile, hard work and shrewdness just like his white counterparts. 

Several economic studies of the last 20 years or so would suggest that George Jefferson’s upward mobility is rare, no matter the color of your skin.  A Harvard study published last fall suggests that social mobility in the US hasn’t changed much over time but varies a great deal by geography.  Ranking 50 metro areas by the percent of the population that moves from the bottom 20% to the top 20%, the study concludes that the factors leading to better social mobility are “less segregation, less income inequality, better schools, greater social capital, and more stable families”.  San Jose, CA tops the list and Charlotte, NC is at the bottom.  

In the late 1990’s the US Department of Education undertook an extensive study of 22,000 kindergarten students, examining their performance at an early age and identifying the social factors that contribute to their success or failure.  The study – the Early Childhood Longitudinal Study (ECLS) – attributed success to the level of the mother’s education, the number of books in the household and two parent families, among many other factors.  Black children underperformed all others but if one controls for the other factors, black children performed as well as their white and Asian peers. 

In other words, there was no difference in the performance of white and black children from two parent families with a well-educated mother and a home full of books.

University of California economics professor Gregory Clark took a different approach to examining social mobility.  He studied success based upon surname.  His findings suggest that lineage has more impact on success than all other factors combined. 

“This is true in Sweden, a social welfare state; England, where industrial capitalism was born; the United States, one of the most heterogeneous societies in history; and India, a fairly new democracy hobbled by the legacy of caste. Capitalism has not led to pervasive, rapid mobility. Nor have democratization, mass public education, the decline of nepotism, redistributive taxation, the emancipation of women, or even, as in China, socialist revolution,” claims Professor Clark.

Ashkenazi Jews named Katz, Scots named MacDonald and Chinese named Wang are more likely than their peers to be successful.

The idea that genetics play a larger role than all other factors in determining success flies in the face of our instincts as parents.  But, Professor Clark’s conclusions are supported by other studies including the Colorado Adoption Project, which followed the lives of 245 babies put up for adoption.  The conclusion?  (You’re not going to like this.)  The study found no correlation between a child’s personality traits and those of their adoptive parents.  In other words, in the battle of nature vs. nurture, nature wins!

So, parents can do only so much to improve their children’s prospects.  Provide a stable family life, read to them and send them to a better school if you have the choice. Other advantages are an accident of birth.

When I wrote about the topic of increasing the minimum wage a few weeks ago, some respondents slammed me for advocating that the poor just “need to work harder and stop whining”.  But, that was not my intention.

The thrust of my argument is this:  raising the minimum wage will do nothing to address income inequality or social mobility.  An American view of a just society encompasses equality of opportunity and that is the key to improving on both scores.

We need better schools and better families, particularly in racially segregated neighborhoods. Local communities must come together to achieve the needed progress.  To quote Germaine Smith-Baugh, CEO of the Urban League of Broward County (FL), “Give me a family and I’ll give you a block.  Give me a block and I’ll give you a neighborhood.  Give me a neighborhood and I’ll give you a community.”

The federal government has done its part.  Professor Clark’s findings suggest that the civil rights legislation of the 1960’s has helped African-American descendants of slaves achieve more starting in the 1970’s.

Perhaps that explains George Jefferson’s popularity.  But, it doesn’t explain his success.  His success is the result of his guile, hard work and shrewdness.

WHO WILL LEAD?

Your iPhone Will Take Your Job

“Maybe not today…  maybe not tomorrow…  but soon and for the rest of your life…”*

   

Technology -- driven by customer interaction or some algorithm much smarter than we are – is taking our jobs.  It’s been going on for decades.  We gladly did the work of a bank teller in exchange for 24/7 access to an ATM beginning in the 1970’s.  No more standing in line to cash our paychecks.   More recently, we quickly adopted the convenience of using a kiosk rather than dealing with an airline employee to get our boarding passes or better yet printed them at home. 

In economic theory, capital investment creates jobs.  Yet, technology investment is booming and employment languishes. 

Ken Jennings, who famously won over $2 Million on Jeopardy, was soundly whipped by an IBM computer dubbed Watson on that same game show.  Combine Watson with the Siri app on your iPhone and guess what happens next.  Your doctor’s job is in jeopardy.

If you think the technology is too rudimentary, consider this.  Visionaries like MIT’s Andrew McAfee point out that Moore’s Law correctly predicted that computing power would double every 18 months way back in the 1960’s.  And Moore was right.  Now, apply that theory to Siri and Watson.  If I ask my doctor about a particular drug, he looks it up on his iPhone.  It’s a short hop to the iPhone looking it up and giving me clinical advice.

In the 20^th Century, science assumed an important role in society.  Great inventions  were born at institutions like Bell Labs or MIT.  Today, the Internet has taken the process of innovation global.  This democratization portends great progress – both economic and social.  McAfee suggest we will “live more lightly on the planet” and “eradicate poverty”.

Yet, I am not so easily convinced that the progress of innovation will mean progress for everyone.  America, the land of opportunity, has been sliding backwards in terms of upward mobility.  The OECD’s latestreport on economic mobility rates the U.S. poorly on that score.

Germaine Smith-Baugh

How will great technological progress provide for the poor uneducated masses in the developing world and in our own inner cities?  A good friend, Germaine Smith-Baugh, is CEO of the Urban League of Broward County.   Their mission?  “To assist African-Americans and other disenfranchised groups in the achievement of social and economic equality.”

I am overwhelmed by the enormity of the task.  Yet, Germaine and her underfunded organization soldier on undeterred.  I asked her how she goes about making a difference.  “I start with a family,” she says.  “If I can get a family, I can get a block.  If I can get a block, I can get a neighborhood.  If I can get a neighborhood, I can get a community.”  And so on.

But the problems of income inequality are much bigger than the Urban League and its like across the U.S. can solve.  For all to thrive, for the middle class to remain a stable economic and social force in this country, we need to address the structural impediments to the solutions. 

Those solutions lie in the need for massive investments in education and infrastructure.  Conservatives eschew such investments by government in favor of free market solutions.  Liberals misallocate funds to projects that focus on social outcomes rather than economic ones. 

A college degree is so expensive to obtain that many people are beginning to doubt there is a financial return.  And colleges themselves seem stuck on providing a great 20^th Century education.  For this country to thrive in the 21^st, our education system must be revamped to train more engineers, moreentrepreneurs and more technicians. 

Budget cutting fervor has reduced aid through Pell Grants and student loan interest rates have skyrocketed because, in the absence of government guarantees, bankers will not loan money to poor students whose prospects are not certain.   If we are to produce a better educated workforce, we must identify the skills and knowledge valued by enterprise.  If government were to work hand and hand with industry to provide graduates with the skills that are in demand, the landscape would change.

Government spending on infrastructure is funneled to unproductive projects by politicians who want to make sure that their district gets a share of the pork that’s being doled out.  If we were to focus our infrastructure investments on the large urban centers that produce a return, we must overcome a political battle over how funds are allocated. 

For sure, non-profits like the Urban League must play a role in bolstering a sense of family and community among our nation’s poor.  However, our dysfunctional government structure and its sour relations with corporate America must be resolved before we can make substantial progress on behalf of the middle class and those less fortunate.

WHO WILL LEAD?

*One of my favorite lines from the movie Casablanca.