(ETA "chosen behavior" clause.)
During that time my car broke down, and it would cost $3000 to fix it. This was money I didn't have. The car was otherwise reliable, so overall it would have been a good financial decision to fix the car that would have provided me with more than $3000 worth of transportation amortized over its future useful life.
But that didn't matter, I couldn't afford to fix it.
I did need a car though, or I couldn't get to work. What I could afford was to take out a loan to buy a used car, even though that used car was not as reliable as my previous car and cost more than $3000.
I ended up getting the used car. My decision to do that was based on my need to get to work and keep my job. It was the right decision, but had I had an extra $3000 in cash, the right decision would have been to fix my otherwise reliable car.
People without extra cash are constantly one misfortune away from a downward spiral.
Is there any statistic to show what percentage of today's top 1% earners where born to a bottom 50% family from the previous generation, and viceversa? If less than what you would expect from two non-correlated random variables, this suggest where you start in life has an effect of how far you can go. This does not invalidate your hypothesis, but may suggest that upwards mobility takes more than one generation to lift people from poverty to wealth.
Further more, we can do the same analysis to figure out how many people from bottom 50% families grow to reach 75% percentile or above. I do not know what it would be, but if much lower than expected, that would suggest that upwards mobility is quite limited, invalidating your hypothesis.
Some of these results are counter intuitive. For example: There's data to show that the top quartile of earners in low inequality countries live longer than their top quartile counterparts in high inequality countries, even if the high inequality counterparts earn much more both in absolute and relative terms.
Edit: Since this is getting downvoted, here's a talk that spends 17 minutes listing studies showing that this is in fact about inequality, not average income. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7LzE3u7Bw
The relevance of social mobility in the discussion was because the GP assumes the correlation that the problems related to inequality/poverty is the result of a third factor that is cause of the other to: personal choices.
My position is that if this is the case, we should be observing strong social mobility in both ways. Surely there are a number of "deserving poor" that started life in a disadvantaged situation but are able to lift themselves out of that by intelligent choices and hard work, as well as there are privileged folks who make enough ill choices and land themselves in trouble.
IF this is not the case, we should adjust the level of agency that people are capable. To what degree is it personal choice able to influence the well being we enjoy in life.
Where you start in life is not independent of innate traits.
(I've been poor. I don't think that.)
Don't get me wrong, in some ways my opinions on the issue enter the very sensitive topic of genetics. I'm by no means a 'fluffy lefty' who believes education solves everything.
But the mere fact that I need to point that out bothers me. From my perspective, without even getting into genetics and whatnot, the 'chosen behavior' thought in regards to the poor is mostly bullshit. Being poor sucks, and a big part of that is a consequence of the fact that society penalizes poverty. Merit doesn't really enter the equation.
I lifted myself out of poverty. I grew up in what southerners call "white trash" (albeit upper middle white trash), and my father was more or less a petty criminal. But I'm well aware that being white, male, smart, and American all contributed heavily to my success. I'm the beneficiary of privilege.
Far, far too many people (and you can see it in this discussion) were born on second base and think they hit a double.
So can be ban lotteries (and casinos, too) unless participants demonstrate they can afford the losses?
edit: If this country were rational enough for the solutions proposed in replies, we wouldn't even be having this conversation.
Not sure if you're trolling. Assuming you aren't, allow me to point out that your analogy is ridiculous. Fines are mandatory: you have to pay them or you face stiffer fines, and even jail. Lottery is completely voluntary. No one is forcing them to play.
Inequality starts from inequality of opportunities.
