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Anyone else confused by the diagonal arrow on the graph?

edit:

> Specifically, rich high school dropouts remain in the top about as much as poor college grads stay stuck in the bottom — 14 versus 16 percent, respectively.

weird comparison




The arrow basically says that 14% and 16% are similar.

"As a rich high school dropout, you have a 14% chance of being in the top 20%." "As a poor college grad, you have a 16% chance of being in the bottom 20%."

If you're in that ~15% of each group, you get the premise that the "poor" college grads didn't do better than the corresponding "rich" dropouts.


But that makes no sense--if you want high social mobility (and you think college grads should be paid more), you want both those numbers to be lower. The article treats it as a problem that they're similar.


I agree. I actually think this whole article is just a puff piece; the premise makes no sense.




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