If life in America's better than we assume, there should be room for more

■"For the Record: The American Dream is alive and well," op-ed by Alan Reynolds, Wall Street Journal, 18 May 2005, p. A14.

Interesting bit from Reynolds' op-ed in WSJ: he takes issue with ongoing series in Times that says gap between rich and poor growing and making it harder for underclass and middle class to move up the wealth ladder. He makes some interesting points.

First, when you look at workers in terms of per-week-of-work data, the income ratio between rich and poor is only 2 to 1. What determines wealth and earnings most seems to be how much work a family generates. Two working parents generate about $85k, compared to only $15k for a family where no one works. Where one parent works full-time is about $60k, compared to families where one parent only works 26 weeks or less and earns on average $28k.

Second, he says that comparing rich and poor often fails to take into account that today's poorer people tend to be tomorrow's richer people, which certainly is the case for me. When I was young I made very little, and as I get older I make a whole lot more. His point, the data is often describing the same people at different times of their lives.

Third, four or more years of college means, on average, that you make 3 times as much money as a HS dropout. So if you can get through college (no easy trick, I grant you), then you can make more money.

His overall point: "there is no evidence that it has become harder to get ahead through hard work at school and on the job. Efforts to claim otherwise appear intended to make any gaps between rich and poor appear unfair."

Reynolds cites the Times' claim that "for most workers, the only time in the last three decades when the rise in hourly pay beat inflation was during the speculative bubble of the 90's." Reynold's rejoinder is that real income (meaning adjusted for inflation) rose for the average household in America rose 40% from 1983 to 2003.

As for the rising rich-poor gap, Reynolds notes that the average top-fifth household has two workers, whereas the bottom fifth tends to have less than one, so it's basically more workers and more education on top, yielding a high premium on skills that accounts for the difference. If the disparity is perpetuated across generations, then most experts cite the role of parenting. More money and two parents will beat less money and one parent, and if you find that argument unconvincing, you've never had kids, because they take a huge amount of effort and a lot of money. Frankly, this is why I could never get divorced: I simply couldn't do that to my kids. Doesn't mean I don't understand why divorce happens, it just means that outcome is simply not on my radar of the possible. I know full well why all my siblings have done well in life, and I know we all owe it primarily to my parents. Of that, I have no illusions.

So I say, let the immigrants in, just like America once let in the Barnetts and the Cliffords and the Heneys. Give me your two-parent familes and your clannish ways. Bring on your old-time religion. We need it all.