Selling out over the Long term to achieve upward mobility

Some black people consider that it is “selling out” to speak without using slang. Some think it is being fake when you change for other people.

Learning proper grammar and more effective communication is just the beginning of properly selling out.

Most who have successfully achieved upward mobility have multi-year and often multi-generational planning and efforts.

UPDATE – Welcome Instapundit readers. There is a discussion of this article now at Instapundit

Vietnamese boat refugees came to north america in the 1970s and 1980s.

They often arrived with no money and few possessions and may not have had command of the language.

What was their model of upward mobility ?

They had multiple families in one house. They pooled income in order to buy their first house (with multiple families inside). Multiple families earning to afford the down payment and then to have more incomes to pay the mortgage. There was greater savings of income and capital appreciation in the house. The house would be sold a few years later and the profit split to afford multiple down payments.

So it was not just dual earners. It was say three families pooling and squeezing one family into each room and camping indoors (for years) or being in bunks inside the one room until they earned enough to move. So it would be say 6 earners and more as children got past the age of twelve and were able to earn. Although the children may have been forgiven the need to earn if it meant better success in education.

The Vietnamese boat people had to escape a war torn country (because they were on the losing side) and 10-70% of them died on the oceans to achieve their change of venue (to locations with more opportunity).

All of the children make it through university and get professional jobs, own one at least one home per family.

Forbes has a profile of a single mother of four on minimum wage. She has 20-27 hours of work at MacDonalds. She makes $400-600 per month and receives food stamps and other government assistance. She dropped out of school in grade 9 when she had her first child at age 17. She aspires to gt her GED and become a pharmacy technician. She has high levels of debt. Her rent is $650/month which is more than her monthly income.

There is an 8 page Pew Trust study of upward mobility

Upward income or wealth mobility, for the purposes of this issue brief, is defined in relative terms. It occurs when a person’s rank on the income or wealth ladder is higher than was his or her parents’ rank at the same age.

Key mobility factors: Demographics and human capital
Race, college attainment, and family employment status matter

Demographic characteristics are related to mobility, with certain households moving up in significantly higher proportions than others.

Human capital played a strong role in upward mobility from the bottom. College graduates, dual-earner families, and people who did not experience unemployment were highly likely to move up. For example:

• 86 percent of college graduates, 84 percent of dual-earner families, and 64 percent of people who were
continuously employed left the bottom income quintile.

• By contrast, only 55 percent of non-college graduates, 49 percent of single-earner families, and 34 percent of people who experienced unemployment moved up from the bottom quintile.

Factors such as education and dual incomes also increased the chances that someone would rise from the
bottom to at least the middle quintile.

Looking forward

With new waves of automation on the horizon, people need to have savings and money in different asset classes. Earnings and options need to be maximized to weather changes and disruptions in the economy. People need to know and project what could be happening in the next 20 years and be ready to make the adaptations that are needed.

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