Besides the awful way of presenting the content, I did think the message was pretty good.
I am no fan of direct cash payments, but I definitely support expanding the Earned Income Tax credit, an incremental increase in the minimum wage (not a big fan of a sudden increase due to decrease in employment as seen here: http://www.nber.org/papers/w12663.pdf ).
But I think the key is education, education, education! In particular, while raising education spending in and of itself doesn't necessarily help, what would help (in my opinion) is a significant increase in teacher pay and a big, big increase in qualifications required to teach. School education departments need to have engineering-like GPA averages and majoring in the specific subject should be required to teach math or science.
On a side note, I think it would be much, much worse to be poor in Silicon Valley than say, Appalachia. At least in poorer areas the cost of living is lower and people don't have to compete against geniuses if they do manage to climb the upward ladder and get a degree (an upward-climbing poor child living in Silicon Valley has to compete against hordes of well-educated, privileged kids with laser-like academic focus on academics, whereas in Appalachia a degree can situate one relatively high on the economic hierarchy).
As someone with residency in both areas, I do not think either is better or worse given that:
- In Appalchia you need a damn car to get around, that adds a lot of wear and tear
- There's no competition because there are no jobs at all, you'll be lucky for even a gas station job,...not the case in the Silicon. A good degree is practically diddly squat
- The food may be cheaper in Appalchia, but it's certainly less likely to be as healthy
What's a low living expense if you don't have a job and the populace still think you're lazy, therefore good luck with getting much help.
Then again, what's so great about the garage or treated well for homelessness and many jobs when it's competitive and the prices are astronomical?
