This week in the War on Workers: If you're not born rich, how do you rise?

attribution: Pew

Putting these two stories next to each other without a whole lot of comment. Matt Bruenig looks into the important question of what's more important: a college degree or being born rich? Of course, you're more likely to go to college if you were born rich, but it doesn't stop there. In the chart above, the red bars are people who didn't go to college and the blue bars are people who did. They're grouped by the income quintile they were born into, and within each bar you see where they ended up. Bruenig lays out the results:

Look at the red bar furthest to the right. That is the bar describing where kids born into the richest fifth who do not get a college degree wind up. Notice that 25% of those kids still wind up in the richest fifth. Now look at the blue bar furthest to the left. That is the bar describing where kids born into the poorest fifth who do get a college degree wind up. Notice that only 10% of those kids wind up in the richest fifth.

So, you are 2.5x more likely to be a rich adult if you were born rich and never bothered to go to college than if you were born poor and, against all odds, went to college and graduated. The disparity in the outcomes of rich and poor kids persists, not only when you control for college attainment, but even when you compare non-degreed rich kids to degreed poor kids!

So basically, if you have the choice between being born rich and going to college, be born rich. Next up, let's see what Federal Reserve Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin had to say about a jobs fair she stopped by. Here's her description of the high end of the jobs at this jobs fair, IT jobs specifically:

This is how you go about getting it. You take your resume and you put it into a database. And this firm essentially collects resumes and then they kind of troll for government contracts. And when they find a government contract that might use your resume then they call you. Then you might actually get a job.

‘So what I need to do is put in my resume and then I’ll be able to get this job?’ And she said ‘yes.’

And I said: ‘while I’m waiting can I go to some other firms and throw my resume into their databases as well?’

And she said ‘oh no, you can’t do that, because you’re going to sign a letter of intent.’ And that letter of intent is basically an exclusivity agreement that says that by putting your resume in here you agree to not put your resume anywhere else.

I said ‘well, gosh, that’s going to be kind of rough. But tell me: what are the percentage chances that I’ll get a job?’

‘You know, we’re doing pretty well. Maybe a 25 percent chance.’

‘How do these jobs pay?’

‘They pay by the hour.’

‘Do they pay benefits?’

‘No benefits, it’s a straight hourly job. And it’s temporary so it’s going to be until the government contract is completed.’

This was really eye-opening for me.

Can you draw the connection between these two items?

Continue reading below the fold for more workers' news.