Is George Will reading Megan McArdle?
Megan McArdle, “The poor really are different,” Asymmetrical Information, September 9, 2005: If poor people did just four things, the poverty rate would be a fraction of what it currently is. Those four things are: 1) Finish high school 2) Get married before having children 3) Have no more than two children 4) Work full ...
Megan McArdle, "The poor really are different," Asymmetrical Information, September 9, 2005:
Megan McArdle, “The poor really are different,” Asymmetrical Information, September 9, 2005:
If poor people did just four things, the poverty rate would be a fraction of what it currently is. Those four things are: 1) Finish high school 2) Get married before having children 3) Have no more than two children 4) Work full time These are things that 99% of middle class people take as due course.
George Will, “A Poverty of Thought,” Washington Post, September 13, 2005.
[T]hree not-at-all recondite rules for avoiding poverty: Graduate from high school, don’t have a baby until you are married, don’t marry while you are a teenager. Among people who obey those rules, poverty is minimal.
What’s interesting is that McArdle and Will end up at somewhat different places with the same basic starting point. Other reads relevant to this conversation for today: Jon Hilsenrath’s Wall Street Journal piece on what economists think about rebuilding New Orleans. Money quote from urban economist Ed Glaeser: “Given just how much, on a per capita basis, it would take to rebuild New Orleans to its former glory, lots of residents would be much [better off] with $10,000 and a bus ticket to Houston.” Then there are these Washington Post poll numbers:
Attitudes toward Bush and the government’s overall response to Hurricane Katrina fracture along clear racial lines. Nearly three in four whites doubted the federal government would have responded more quickly to those trapped in New Orleans if they had been wealthier and white rather than poorer and black, the poll found. But an equal share of blacks disagreed, saying help would have come sooner if the victims had been more affluent whites. More than six in 10 blacks — 63 percent — said the problems with the hurricane relief effort are an indication of continuing racial inequity in this country, a view rejected by more than seven in 10 whites, according to the poll.
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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