Monthly Archives: November 2011

New Census definition of poverty behind the rise of poverty in the US?

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While media outlets have spread the recent news from the Census Bureau that poverty has increased in the United States, some conservatives question whether this is a true change or reflects a change in the measurement of poverty:

The new Census measure suggests that the ranks of the poor – at 49 million – are 3 million larger than previously thought. The increase comes in the new way poverty is measured. The new Census report for the first time includes government subsidies and benefits such as food stamps as a part of household income, but it also factors in rising costs, such as health-care expenses. The result creates a new poverty line and a new view of who in the US is poor.

The new threshold for poverty for family of four, for example, is $24,343, as opposed to $22,113. And the revision reveals greater poverty trends among Asians, Hispanics, whites, and the elderly, and declining poverty for blacks and children, who tend to be greater beneficiaries of food stamps…

Sociologists say the new numbers give greater nuance to the portrait of poverty in the US, highlighting the degree to which government programs are keeping struggling Americans afloat. Critics counter the numbers are engineered precisely to make government assistance appear indispensable and to pave the way for a broader redistribution of American wealth toward the poor…

The Census changes are the first revisions to how the poverty rate is calculated since 1963. Since then, it has been gauged solely by cash income per household. But the new figures give a larger sense of what impact government spending has on poverty, says Timothy Smeeding, an economist at the University of Wisconsin in Madison.

Can’t really say I’m surprised that these figures are politicized. But, then again, the measurement of poverty has been a contentious topic for decades.

Defending Georgetown’s sociology class on Jay-Z

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Georgetown’s sociology class on Jay-Z (“SOCI -124-01 or Sociology of Hip-Hop — Urban Theodicy of Jay-Z”) continues to draw attention from a wide variety of sources but one recent report contains a twist: defending the class from those who criticize its relevance.

“This is not a class meant to sit around and go, ‘Oh man, those lyrics were dope,’ Dyson said, who is a Princeton-educated author, syndicated radio host and ordained Baptist minister. “We’re dealing with everything that’s important in a sociology class: race, gender, ethnicity, class, economic inequality, social injustice. . . . His body of work has proved to be powerful, effective and influential. And it’s time to wrestle with it.”

The class has already filled its 80-student enrollment cap the first week of the semester, which forced Dyson to relocate into a larger classroom that can hold 140 students. In the lecture hall scheduled every Monday and Wednesday, students gain insight of rap music’s political impact in a different light. Drawing parallels to other prominent figures such as civil rights pioneer W.E.B. Du Bois and the rhymes of rap legend Notorious B.I.G., Dyson’s teachings discusses Jay-Z from his street hustles to ascending to the top, which have sparked many conversations on campus…

Regardless of some disapproval from parents, the 53-year-old is serving as a bridge in which ideas about hip-hop can reach a younger audience. Timonthy Wickham-Crowley, chairman of Georgetown’s sociology department, supports Dyson’s course by arguing that the study of Jay-Z’s work is a valuable tool for sociological examination.

“When [Dyson] comes out of the classroom, he has students in tow and there are these animated, engaged conversations going on,” he said.

It would be interesting to hear more from these parents: do they think that hip-hop is an inappropriate topic for a college class or are there are other concerns? It would be interesting to know whether this course helps promote sociology (it’s relevant!) or contributes to the criticism that we study “soft” topics (you’re paying that much money to go to Georgetown and you’re learning what?).

Also, the quote in support from Dyson from the department chair here is not the greatest sociological defense: it is a popular course that is stimulating conversation. Rather, the better defense comes from Dyson himself who suggests the class is really about “race, gender, ethnicity, class, economic inequality, social injustice…” (We could also add culture to this mix.) In some ways, the topic here isn’t that important (it could be Lady Gaga, for instance, or Hollywood blockbusters or how gender is portrayed in advertising or the NFL) but rather how sociological topics are part of everyday life.

How small is too small for a new house? Debating minimum sizes (along with race and class)

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There are plenty of people who would like to see Americans live in smaller homes but some communities have minimum square footage requirements for new homes, leading to this question: how small is too small for a new house?

Chris Jaussi, owner of Zip Kit Homes in Mount Pleasant, manufactures homes as small as 400 square feet and would like to sell the micro dwellings in the county. But dwellings that small are prohibited by a 1980s ordinance that mandates the minimum size [800 square feet] of a residence…

He believes the current ordinance is “discriminatory” against lower-income people who can’t afford a conventional “stick-built home” in the county…

County officials said the existing policy was adopted to limit mobile and double-wide manufactured homes to specified zoned areas and keep them from springing up randomly in the county…

“I have a lot of sympathy for those who can’t afford their own homes — the poor of Sanpete County. But I don’t want to make housing so cheap we import the poor from other cities,” said Stewart [vice chair of the county’s Planning and Zoning Commission], according to the newspaper. “We get someone who can’t afford to build a bigger home, so they buy this one and fill up the rest of the [5-acre county lot] with junk cars …we don’t want people to come to Sanpete County for that reason.”

This is fascinating for a couple of reasons:

1. Many residents may not think about minimum or maximum home sizes – can’t you build what you want on your own property? However, zoning laws are often quite clear about this.

2. I don’t think minimum home sizes are that unusual. It sounds like this was enacted in this particular county to limit manufactured homes but I also have read about a similar battle in Naperville. Levitt and Sons, the same builders who built the famous Levittowns in the Northeast, proposed building smaller homes of about 1,000 square feet in the early 1980s. However, residents of nearby newer subdivisions complained that the much lower prices of these “downsized” homes would reduce their own property values. Naperville thought about enacting a minimum size ordinance but decided not to after finding that similar regulations in other Chicago suburbs had been struck down in court.

3. Let’s be honest here: this is all about property values and of course, property values also coincide with issues of race and class. More expensive homes, which on average are more likely to attract middle- to upper-class residents who are more likely to be white, are seen by many communities as a boon while smaller homes which attract the lower classes and minorities are seen as less worthwhile. Look at the associations cited here in this story: allowing smaller homes will automatically attract lower-income residents who will live in mobile homes and/or keep junked cars in their yards. The suburbs have a long history of formal and informal ways of restricting access to the poor and a minimum house size or lot size (usually associated with exclusionary zoning) can accomplish this. I do wonder though if these smaller homes will necessarily attract low-income residents – if these smaller homes are about being green (and perhaps also about quality rather than quantity), might they also be marketed to more educated, higher-class residents?

Increasing gap in wealth between older and younger generations in America

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It isn’t too surprising that older Americans have more wealth than younger Americans but perhaps the bigger story is that this gap has increased in recent decades:

The wealth gap between younger and older Americans has stretched to the widest on record, worsened by a prolonged economic downturn that has wiped out job opportunities for young adults and saddled them with housing and college debt.

The typical U.S. household headed by a person age 65 or older has a net worth 47 times greater than a household headed by someone under 35, according to an analysis of census data released Monday.

While people typically accumulate assets as they age, this wealth gap is now more than double what it was in 2005 and nearly five times the 10-to-1 disparity a quarter-century ago, after adjusting for inflation.

The median net worth of households headed by someone 65 or older was $170,494. That is 42 percent more than in 1984, when the Census Bureau first began measuring wealth broken down by age. The median net worth for the younger-age households was $3,662, down by 68 percent from a quarter-century ago, according to the analysis by the Pew Research Center.

The analysis in the story suggests that this growing gap is indicative of tougher economic conditions brought about by difficulties in finding a job, the delaying of marriage, growing college debt, and less of an ability to purchase a home when younger.

I wonder how this gap might translate into social or political action. Older Americans are well known for their relatively high voting turnout compared to younger Americans who are more fickle. Would younger Americans vote consistently about down-the-road issues like the national debt, Social Security, and other things they may be several decades from personally experiencing? Is this less consistent voting behavior among younger Americans the reason that there aren’t more safety nets for younger adults? Are Millennials, and not “Walmart Moms,” the next major voting bloc to emerge?

How much of this should raise concern about the economic welfare of younger Americans now or should we be more worried about how this later, rougher start in life will lead to less wealthy Americans (with its impact on American society) decades down the road?

It would be interesting to tie this to information about the demographics of the Occupy Wall Street protests. Media reports have tended to portray many of the protestors as college students or just our of college – how true is this? In public support for the movement, how much is based in the younger ages versus older demographics (who might support the Tea Party more?)?

The NFL says the “All-22” camera angle is proprietary information

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The NFL is a TV ratings powerhouse and makes billions each year on selling television rights. However, fans don’t see the same action that the league and teams watch because the league claims its “All-22” view is proprietary information:

If you ask the league to see the footage that was taken from on high to show the entire field and what all 22 players did on every play, the response will be emphatic. “NO ONE gets that,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy wrote in an email. This footage, added fellow league spokesman Greg Aiello, “is regarded at this point as proprietary NFL coaching information.”

For decades, NFL TV broadcasts have relied most heavily on one view: the shot from a sideline camera that follows the progress of the ball. Anyone who wants to analyze the game, however, prefers to see the pulled-back camera angle known as the “All 22.”

While this shot makes the players look like stick figures, it allows students of the game to see things that are invisible to TV watchers: like what routes the receivers ran, how the defense aligned itself and who made blocks past the line of scrimmage.

By distributing this footage only to NFL teams, and rationing it out carefully to its TV partners and on its web site, the NFL has created a paradox. The most-watched sport in the U.S. is also arguably the least understood. “I don’t think you can get a full understanding without watching the entirety of the game,” says former head coach Bill Parcells. The zoomed-in footage on TV broadcasts, he says, only shows a “fragment” of what happens on the field.

Why does the NFL do this? Here are a few plausible scenarios:

1. It can do it so it will. The NFL won’t be bullied into doing something it doesn’t want to do. As long as the money keeps pouring in for TV rights, there is little pressure the public can put on the league for this footage.

1a. If enough fans and commentators picked up on this, could they force the NFL’s hand? It seems unlikely.

2. The NFL makes billions on TV rights and perhaps wants to package this video in a certain way. A later part of the story suggests the NFL has quietly floated the idea of selling access to this footage.

3. The league is worried about legitimate football competitors. There are not currently any viable threats but this could pop up again.

4. The league thinks this is the core data of the NFL, what actually happens on all plays, and will go to great lengths to protect its “intellectual property.” I find this a little hard to believe: aren’t there plenty of people who could understand and scheme what happens on a football field even if the primary camera angle doesn’t show it? Are teams really that worried about what the public might see or that other teams are missing things in the video?

Measuring how much the Internet is worth: $8 trillion?

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A recent report by McKinsey puts the value of the Internet at $8 trillion. Here are a few other fun facts:

There is a lot of Internet to measure, with two billion global consumers and $8 trillion in total revenue. So McKinsey’s report limited its scope to the online economy in the G-8 countries plus five more: Brazil, China, India, South Korea and Brazil. It defined Internet activities as private consumption (electronic equipment, e-commerce, broadband subscriptions, mobile Internet, and hardware and software consumption); private investment (from the telecommunications industry and the maintenance of extranet, intranet, and Web sites); public expenditure (spending and buying by government in software hardware and services); and trade (which accounts for exports of Internet equipment plus business-to-business services with overseas companies)…

As an industry, the Internet contributes more to the typical developed economy than mining, utilities, agriculture, or education. In Sweden, fully one-third of economic growth in the five years leading up to the recession came from Internet activities. For the entire G-8, the average was 21 percent. In an analysis of France since the mid-1990s, McKinsey found that the Internet created more than twice the number of jobs it destroyed.

Much of the Internet’s contribution to our lives is nearly impossible to measure. For example, I use email. How much is that worth to me? I can’t even begin to say. I read hundreds of news sources a day. What is that worth to me, or to the news organizations? Pricing this kind of thing is exhausting to think about. But since analyzing what the rest of us find “exhausting to think about” is McKinsey’s job, their researchers looked at the “consumer surplus” of the Internet, concluding that the total annual benefit to the United States comes out to $64 billion…

The United States is the world leader in the online industry, grabbing 30 percent of global Internet revenues. But the UK is the world leader in online retail. The British spent $2,535 on e-stuff in 2009, more than twice the average of the world’s largest countries and still 1.4 times the amount of the typical U.S. shopper. Sweden leads the world in Internet’s contribution to GDP. Fully 6.3 of the country’s economy is online — twice Germany, France or India. In Russia, the Internet contributes not even one percent of GDP.

Some interesting stuff here:

1. I appreciate the emphasis on the difficulty of measuring this topic. In addition to simply thinking about the economic benefits, we could spend a lot of time discussing how it has altered social interaction, private practices, and democracy. I wonder what the margin of error is on the estimates.

2. There is some indication of the splits between the Internet haves and have-nots. If the Internet is so valuable, should this be a leading component of aid to poorer countries? It does require a decent investment in infrastructure but it would allow people to easily connect to first-world countries and industries. For example, what is the impact of the less than $100 laptop that was touted for years?

3. With all of this money (and value floating around), it is a reminder why so many states want to get their hands on sales tax revenues from Internet sales. Do European countries like Britain have a similar system? I have bought a few things from Amazon.co.uk in the past and I don’t recall the experience being much different.

4. I would be interested to know the future prospects for the Internet’s growth: how quickly will it grow? How much will it expand? Is most of the growth within developed countries or in opening or expanding newer markets (China and India plus others)?

New data on how many close friends Americans really have

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An influential 2006 study, Social Isolation in America, published in the American Sociological Review suggested this about friendships:

The number of people saying there is no one with whom they discuss important matters nearly tripled. The mean network size decreases by about a third (one confidant), from 2.94 in 1985 to 2.08 in 2004.

While this paper has been cited widely, a new sociological study suggests the situation may not be so bad:

Although this shrinking social network “makes us potentially more vulnerable,” said Matthew Brashears, assistant professor of sociology at Cornell University, “we’re not as socially isolated as scholars had feared.” However, Brashears isn’t confident in any of the numbers gathered for social isolation in past studies and the current one, suggesting better methods of getting true numbers are needed…

About 48 percent of participants listed one name [of someone they had discussed “important matters” with in the last 6 months], 18 percent listed two, and roughly 29 percent listed more than two names for these close friends. On average, participants had 2.03 confidantes. And just over 4 percent of participants didn’t list any names.

When Brashears looked closer at that number of socially isolated individuals, he found that 64 percent indicated that this was because they had no topic to discuss, while only about 36 percent had no one to talk to. Turns out, female participants and those who were educated were the least likely to report no names on their confidante list.

“Rather than our networks getting smaller overall, what I think may be happening is we’re simply classifying a smaller proportion of our networks as suitable for important discussions,” Brashears told LiveScience. “This is reassuring in that it suggests that we’re not becoming less social.”

Several things are interesting here:

1. The new study was done by Matthew Brashears, one of the co-authors of the 2006 study.

2. The actual numeric findings don’t seem that different from the 2006 study: Americans have about on average about two close confidantes.

3. The change here is the interpretation: Americans suggest that don’t have as much of a need for close confidantes. What kind of effects could this have on society? Have Americans lost the skill or the will to be a close friend? Have we become more private individuals about the most important topics?

4. One of the more interesting bits: “Brashears isn’t confident in any of the numbers gathered for social isolation in past studies and the current one.” Just confident enough to have work published in ASR on the topic? Perhaps it is just worded strangely in this report – perhaps the data isn’t optima lbut this is the best we can do with the tools we currently have.

How much it costs to live in the cheaper suburbs or expensive New York City

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Opponents of sprawl argue that while many prospective buyers move further away from work in order to buy bigger yet cheaper homes, there is a cost. One website argues that the each mile closer to work is $15,900 that could be spent on a house:

We all know that driving to and from work every day is costly, but exactly howmuch of a toll does each mile of commuting take on your finances? This True Cost of Commuting graphic breaks it down.

Taking stats and calculations previously mentioned by Mr. Money Mustache, the infographic illustrates just how expensive commuting is. Each mile you live from work costs $795 in commuting expenses per year (assuming a driving cost of 34 cents per mile and factoring time lost with a salary of $25 per hour). $795 a year for just one mile! You could buy a house worth $15,900 more with that, as Mr. Money Mustache pointed out in his article, since $795 would cover the interest on a 5% mortgage rate.

If you don’t want to calculate in the time-is-money factor, each mile (one way) of commuting will cost you $170 a year. It’s a compelling reason to move as close to work if you can (or bike to work or telecommute).

See the large infographic here. I don’t know about Mr. Money Mustache’s calculations but this is a sizable number.

At the same time, there were reports this week that the Occupy Wall Street protestors tend to live in pricier homes. As Megan McArdle notes, this is a consumption choice where people decide to spend more of their income on a home in a great city:

My initial reaction was the same as many people I’ve seen in comments sections: the protest is in New York, which is expensive.  This is hardly surprising.

But on second thought, I don’t think that’s quite right.  At least some of the houses identified by the Daily Caller are in places like Texas and Wisconsin.  But more importantly, I’m not sure we should “discount” these home values for location.  The fact is that living in an expensive city is a consumption choice.
You hear this argument all the time from people in New York.  “Rich?  Hah!  We’ve got four people in 1600 square feet, and our school bills are going to put us into bankruptcy.”  Many New Yorkers believe that they should be given some sort of income tax abatement because of the expense of living there (with the lost revenue being made up from “really rich” people, natch).  Slightly less affluent New Yorkers frequently believe that landlords should be forced to offer them “reasonably sized” apartments at a modest fraction of their income, because after all, otherwise they couldn’t afford to live in New York…
Living in a blue state is a choice.  If coming to New York meant that you had to put four people in a three bedroom apartment that’s uncomfortably far from a subway line, instead of buying a nice little condo in Omaha, this does not mean that you are not “really” better off than your counterpart in Omaha; it means that you have chosen to consume your extra wealth in the form of “living in New York” rather than in the form of spacious real estate, cheap groceries, and an easy commute.

So what people in the Midwestern suburbs might spend on a daily 20 mile each way commute in a SUV translates into a more expensive apartment in New York City.

Both stories cited above suggest consumption is a choice. But is it truly an unfettered choice? What would lead some people to aim for the bigger yet cheaper house in the suburbs and others to spend more money on a smaller place in a cosmopolitan paradise? Perhaps this information would help both sides engage in conversation rather than talk past each other and try to force the other side to follow their logic…

Of course, we could look at the broader trend of American political and cultural discourse on this subject. On the whole, government policies have promoted suburban living while a few big cities, such as New York City, have successful dense, mass-transit oriented living. Cultural discourse, even if it is shifting toward the younger generation’s increased interest in denser living, still privileges the suburban American Dream.

Verdict: very limited baby boom in Chicago due to Feb 2011 snowstorm

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It is a common story that natural disasters lead to baby booms as residents have little else to do except spend “quality time together” (a perhaps unintentional euphemism from the story cited in the next sentence). But the academic research on the topic isn’t so clear – here is a quick review from Friday’s front page story in the Chicago Tribune:

Udry’s [negative] finding [regarding a lengthy 1970 New York City blackout] is frequently viewed as the final word in “disaster babies” — the popular debunking website Snopes.com cites it in declaring the phenomenon a myth — but more contemporary research suggests there might be something to the idea.

A 2005 study of birth rates following the Oklahoma City bombing looked at 10 years of data and found that the counties closest to the site had indeed experienced higher than expected numbers of births after the attack…

But perhaps the most intriguing evidence supporting the idea of disaster babies was published last year by Brigham Young University economist Richard Evans. He and his colleagues looked at hurricane-prone counties on the Atlantic and Gulf coasts and compared birth rates that came nine months after the announcement of impending storms.

They found that while the rates went up after the mildest expected disruption (a tropical storm watch) they went down after the most serious (a hurricane warning)…

If Evans is right that the blizzard would only produce a 2% increase in the birth rate, this is not a huge jump. In fact, Evans is cited later in the story saying that this would only be a difference of a “few dozen births” throughout the Chicago region of 8.3 million people. So if there is an effect, it is minimal. But urban legends have lives of their own – another example is the recurring issue of tainted Halloween candy that sociologist Joel Best gamely tries to stamp out.

What about other data regarding the February blizzard like a rise in heart attacks or back injuries or other medical traumas? I can think we can be pretty sure that there was a lot of shoveling that took place.

Even with a small drive, it took quite a while to clear all that snow.

Even Gawker says “The McMansion is dead”

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Since Gawker is reporting it, does this really mean that the McMansion is dead?

This heartless recession has stolen from America our most treasured national totems. Huge SUVs? Too gas-guzzling. Sprawling suburbs far removed from the “diverse” cities? Reduced to slums. And now, the recession is coming for our very homes.

By “our,” I mean “people with too much money and too little taste.” The WSJ says that the humble McMansion—the rightful reward of all hardworking Americans willing to take on a $450,000 mortgage and a 75-minute commute in order to have a huge, useless foyer lined with the thinnest sheet of marble veneer—is no longer the popular thing to build, for builders who want to build homes that will actually sell. Shrines to conspicuous consumption are out! By necessity.

Goodbye, grand foyers! Adios, spiral staircases! Hello, newly poor American rationalizing their now meager living spaces like a bunch of formerly wealthy people wiped out by financial calamity—which they are!

Totem could be taken as referring to a religious object of devotion, a la Durkheim. If so, do Americans worship SUVs, McMansions, and suburbs? That would be interesting to discuss.

Granted, Gawker is quoting an interesting Wall Street Journal story that suggests the wealthy/big homes of the future that will include “drop zones,” space for an elevator, a “lifestyle center” (not to be confused with gussied-up outdoor malls masquerading as community centers known by the same name), steam showers (goodbye soaker tubs!), and outdoor living space.

A reminder: this is the same website that has this description leading off its stories about Jersey Shore (this is from earlier this year).

When watching Jersey Shore, the most important sociological experiment of our time, we’re looking for new and exciting behavior.

Me thinks there may be some hyperbole and/or mocking there. At least that is what I hope.