Has the Left Lost Faith in Upward Mobility?
Mike Petrilli,
Oct 07, 2013
If people (not just on the left) have lost faith in the concept of upward mobility, it is probably because of the sort of writing they see in this column from (ostensibly discussing education): "Let's do the math. Today the federal income poverty threshold for a single person is $11,490. If that person works a minimum-wage job for 40 hours a week and for 50 weeks a year, she earns $14,500 per year. Ergo, she's not poor, at least according to the official definition." Leaving aside the equivocation between the terms "poverty" and "poor", the quote represents a deep misunderstanding of what life is like for people working on minimum wage. More on the same issue from Alter-Net.
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