"Enlisted recruits in 2006 and 2007 came primarily from middle-class and upper-middle-class backgrounds. Low-income neighborhoods were underrepresented among enlisted troops, while middle-class and high-income neighborhoods were overrepresented." [0]
"Military recruits mirror the U.S. population and are solidly middle class.
A recent report shows that more recruits come from middle-income families, with far fewer drawn from poorer families. Youth from upper-income families are represented at almost exactly their fair share."
Your source is inaccurate because it's for enlisted only. Upper class are far more likely to be officers or warrant officers.
My point stands: upper class serve more than lower class.
Thanks for providing some citations. The military.com link is to a military recruiting ad, and Heritage's business is generating talking points and 'research' for conservative/Republican policy (look at their front page).
Here's a report saying that 79% of US Army recruits come from families with service members. [0] IIRC, the military is overwhelmingly rural and does not recruit in major urban areas - which matches my experiece in major urban areas. [EDIT: 1] Also, the officer corps is overwhelmingly white people, afaik, in a country that is only about half white people in that age group. However, I realize I've only provided one [edit: 2!] good cite[s] myself!
>The military.com link is to a military recruiting ad
military.com is a news and information website that covers topics such as benefits to military members, veterans, their families and those with military affinity. Even if there are links to recruiting, this does nothing to refute the facts.
>Heritage's business is generating talking points and 'research' for conservative/Republican policy
Reality has a conservative bias apparently. The facts are here for all to see.
>Here's a report saying that 79% of US Army recruits come from families with service members.
Which is a meaningless statistic. This number could be the same across all income classes, or again, higher income classes could be overrepresented.
>the military is overwhelmingly rural and does not recruit in major urban areas
That is hilariously wrong. Your own sources shows Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Tampa, Atlanta, etc. all in the top counties for recruitment. "Blue cities" != "[all] major urban areas". Your anti-Southern bias is showing.
>Also, the officer corps is overwhelmingly white people, afaik, in a country that is only about half white people in that age group.
This is to be expected due to requiring a four year degree, among other things. Whites are slightly overrepresented in the officer corps. The US is 73% White (including Hispanic), and the officer corps is 75.8% White (including Hispanic). Asians are also ever so slightly overrepresented in the officer corps.
I can easily attack your source(s) as fake news outlets (New York Times especially), but I'm not going to use fallacies like you have here. Your sources simply do not back up your claims.
The richest quantile is overrepresented. The aforementioned report was compiled by Dr. Shanea Watkins, a policy analyst specializing in empirical studies.
Unless you have sources that claim otherwise, my original claim stands.
I think it’s fair for the person you’re replying @ to point out the heritage foundation is a self professed conservative think tank if you point out that you believe the NYT is not trustworthy. There’s nothing inherently wrong with being a conservative think tank but it’s important to consider how data presentation might be impacted by the person(s) presenting the data. Which is in line with your suspicions of the NYT.
I wouldn't be so even-handed. Asserting something is biased doesn't make it so; assertions aren't taken as fact or truth. Assertions are worthless and two assertions are equally worthless. I talked about the factual basis of my claims and the parent claims, not assertions.
>Whites are slightly overrepresented in the officer corps.
This is why whites were overrepresented as a percentage of troops killed in Vietnam, because so many young officers were killed leading platoons in the jungle.
My point stands: upper class serve more than lower class.
While that may very well be true, it i worth highlighting that the reports you are citing as evidence is looking at the years 2003 and 2006-2007, and a lot has changed, economically and politically, since then.
Also their cut off for "high-income" seems to be significantly lower than what most people would consider "upper class".
Because that is reality. $65k is where the richest quantile for neighborhood median household income starts, by census tract [0]. The linked report was compiled by Dr. Shanea Watkins, a policy analyst specializing in empirical studies.
Unless you have sources that claim otherwise, my original claim stands.
Or that just means that upper class doesn't start at the boundary of the top quantile.
I'm sorry but no stretch of the imagination has upper class as a couple making 33k/yr each. That's absolutely absurd. That's $16.50 an hour with no overtime.
Looking at it, upper class typically is the top one or two percent of the population.
The OP specifically mentioned "upper classes". It is a fact that the lower classes (lowest quantile) are underrepresented, and the higher classes (highest quantile) are overrepresented [0].
> “Upper class starts at $65k/yr” is peak Heritage Foundation.
Yes, peak facts that don't care about your feelings. $65k is where the richest quantile for neighborhood median household income starts, by census tract [0]. The linked report was compiled by Dr. Shanea Watkins, a policy analyst specializing in empirical studies.
Unless you have sources that claim otherwise, my original claim stands.
There might be good reasons to use that breakdown, but I still think referring to people with a household income of $65K as "upper class" is misleading.
There's also something a bit strange with this breakdown. The top 20 percent of households made more than $91,705 [0][1] in 2007. $65K appears to be the top 20 percent of census tracts. That doesn't seem right, though, because you wouldn't expect 20 percent of the population to come from 20 percent of the tracts, unless they're exactly the same size (which tracts are not), so maybe I made a mistake in interpretation.
The OP specifically mentioned "upper classes". It is a fact that the lower classes (lowest quantile) are underrepresented, and the higher classes (highest quantile) are overrepresented [0].
No need to be rude. It sounded like you were suggesting that if the two populations were merged, the underrepresented-rich effect would rise above the minimal level for enlisted alone (0.1%). And I’m saying it’s not going up by much.
The section of the report on officers starts at page 9, I’m looking at the graphs on pages 9, 10, and 11. If you see the data elsewhere, please share.
$65k is where the richest quantile for neighborhood median household income starts, by census tract [0]. The linked report was compiled by Dr. Shanea Watkins, a policy analyst specializing in empirical studies.
Unless you have sources that claim otherwise, my original claim stands.
Yes, and that data stops the grouping of household income at $87k and higher, which isn’t really that high of a floor, and is telling in itself. There are no further breakouts, such as 87-100, 100-200, 200+ because it would presumably be insignificant.
The link YATA1's been posting actually does [0]. About 3.46 percent of people enlisting come from households making more than $100K, although those households make up about 8 percent of the population [1]. In general, it looks like it matches the population more than the quintile breakdowns do.
Because that is reality. $65k is where the richest quantile for neighborhood median household income starts, by census tract [0]. The linked report was compiled by Dr. Shanea Watkins, a policy analyst specializing in empirical studies.
Unless you have sources that claim otherwise, my original claim stands.
[0] https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/demographics-us-military