Education and motivation The last time Jayson Seaver tried to persuade Jackie to attend college was Christmas 2004 at their parents’ home in Appleton, Wisconsin. She had just quit a waitressing job so she could move with her boyfriend out of state. She had little money, no health insurance and, as far as Jayson could see, a bleak future. “You’d enjoy college,” he recalls telling her, trying the soft sell. But Jackie, then 18, was having none of it. And the anger between them mounted. “You’re destined for a life of mediocrity,” he said. “Let me do what I want!” she shot back. Economists differ about how much weight to give the various factors behind the wealth gap, but they generally agree on one thing: College matters, in part because many of the middle-income jobs once available to those who skipped it are disappearing. According to a Pew Research analysis of Census data, the average income of a household led by someone with just a high school degree fell 5 percent from 1991 to 2012, adjusted for inflation. By contrast, income for households led by the college educated rose 9 percent. As with the nation, so with the Seavers. Jayson went on to make big money at a commodity trading company — $300,000 or so in his last job, by his own estimate. He invested in a restaurant in Manhattan, where he lives. He vacations in Florida, Costa Rica and Hawaii. Jackie went back to waitressing, married the boyfriend and took a job at a drug company, where her boss called her a “top candidate” for promotion. But he turned her down because he said she needed a college degree. Now, rather than jet around on vacation like her brother, Jackie and her husband tend to go camping. Yet she says she’s happy with a more modest lifestyle. Asked about the nation’s wealth gap, Jayson says, “You get paid what you put in. We’re in control.” Jackie isn’t so quick with a response. She wonders if there’s more behind the trend than some people working hard and making the right moves and others not. Still, in the end, she essentially agrees with her brother.
Posted on: Fri, 02 Jan 2015 17:15:17 +0000
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