Privileged classist advocate with no contextual knowledge - Math is Hard edition

An example of contextual myopia when people become so focused on the importance of their cause that they lose sight of the foolishness of their argument. Doesn't matter how good the cause might be. This has nothing to do with the value of the cause, motivation or effectiveness. Just the argument. From Inequality Begins at Birth in America by Jeff Madrick, a tautological headline if there ever was one. I clicked through because I thought it might have some evidentiary information, but no. Just an advocate's polemic.

I quit reading eleven paragraphs in when I got to:

In addition, nearly one in two children under 18 live below double the poverty line (about $47,000 today), an income just barely adequate to meet basic needs, and completely inadequate in many localities.

What a great example of contextual myopia. Almost Lake Woebegonian in its simplicity.

Median household income is at just about $50,000. Ignoring all the various nuances, you would expect nearly one in two children under 18 to live in a household with an income below $47,000. Basically the advocate is saying that about half the children live in households below the median. Well, yeah. I am going out on a limb, but I have to guess that Madrick is in that half of the class that makes the top half possible. In the catalogue of compelling arguments, I think this one is probably pretty close to the bottom.

And it is interesting, to me, how this plays out. Childhood poverty is a complex and real issue. It warrants attention and careful action. However, if its vocal advocates make a rookie mistake like this, why would you trust them to make any important decision? You end up with someone passionately believing something that others are likely to believe as well but undermining their position by letting their passion blind them to the context and thereby sabotaging the argument that others are already willing to believe.

You don't have to scratch much further below the argument to get to an inference that is insulting. Madrick apparently believes that the majority of Americans, existing on the median household income are "existing on an income just barely adequate to meet basic needs". Really? Just how rich and privileged do you have to be to believe that to be the case. There is such a stench of disengaged privileged altruism that it is enough to make you gag. More to the point, what is the household income level that Madrick thinks makes you safe from bare adequacy? And even more pertinently, how on earth would you achieve that?

The US is the most productive nation in the world and yet according to Madrick, the median income is just barely adequate to make ends meet. I wonder what he would think if he travelled outside his privileged cocoon and saw how the rest of the world lived.