I was wondering what people think about this, poverty at least in nations like the US is largely due to stupidity. Most "good paying" jobs require a high IQ. Considering careers which broach the 250K mark, the line that would in most areas equate to upper middle class, most of them require a college education and oftentimes a graduate degree. These "good paying" jobs are restricted to the more intelligent. I feel that poverty will become more correlated with IQ as will higher incomes. Having a 150 IQ doesn't guarantee having phenomenal wealth, however it means you are unlikely to be starving. Discuss.
Trending Content
| +90 | GF doesn’t care about her looks | 57 | 10h | |
| +60 | Affair with my Associate… In Desperate Need for Advice | 23 | 1d | |
| +51 | How to sound more eloquent? | 19 | 5h | |
| +40 | 400k/year in HVAC sales? | 26 | 2d | |
| +37 | WSO Ranking On Resume??? | 9 | 5h | |
| +34 | Are you “less ambitious” for having long term goals outside of NYC | 13 | 11h | |
| +33 | Would you rather live alone in an outer borough or with roommates in Manhattan? | 23 | 2d | |
| +28 | Why do people listen to Jim Cramer Investing Advice? | 11 | 7h | |
| +27 | Carnivore Diet | 12 | 10h | |
| +26 | Is my boss gaslighting me? | 3 | 1d |
Career Resources
250k is upper middle?
i think its about working hard and smart, you could be well off with a 115 IQ.
You're right. In NYC, it's more like $500K/year.
this thread is sure to bring out some winners
It depends in NYC 250 is definitely not upper middle class, in south Florida it is, I said in most areas, there are outliers, 150K may be enough in Mississippi, 750k may not be enough in the UES.
$500K/year= $100K/year to spend on housing, conservatively. That's enough to get you a two or three bedroom penthouse in most neighborhoods in NYC. I'm not 100% sure that's filthy rich, but it's definitely upper middle class.
I have a feeling this thread is gonna go South fast.
Oh well. Time for me to drive back to Jersey City in my rusty Honda. I've caused enough trouble here as it is.
Do you live near the water or near route 440?
all things being equal... yes
But all things are not equal. So i'd say that IQ is a very narrow view on the issue of Poverty
I think this is flat out wrong.
I'm sure their are millions of people currently in poverty with an IQ much higher than the smartest of Americans.
Which means the real difference is access to education, not mental capacity. In the modern world, access to education is a function of one's wealth, so in reality the wealthy already have the opportunities to stay on top, regardless of their IQ.
IQ means shit over a certain level. Once you cross a certain threshold, IQ doesn't really mean much. In fact, I'd argue that after a cetain point, EQ means much more than IQ. Look at Forbes 400. You think these are the 400 smartest people in the world? These guys understand social dynamics, not because of superior IQ but because they can basically control their emotions.
Lol at millions of people with higher IQs living in poverty.
Maybe the high IQ people in the hood are just the dealers and others that figure out a way to make money despite their circumstance?
correlation between poverty and IQ... try checking here:
http://www.google.com/
hoping this thread fizzles away before going to hell.
::fingers crossed::
There are different ways to interpret the correlation, but the correlation certainly is there:
http://www.indiana.edu/~intell/bellcurve.shtml#kaminpoverty
I watched a video recently (you might be able to find it if you google some of the terms) of a guy who had an Ivy League (don't remember which one) Phd in Physics and Mathematics but, after some financial trouble, was living in a shelter in Boston. My point is that for you to imply that the poor are somehow dumber than the middle and upper class is beyond absurd. The poor include that Phd in Physics and Math, and the rich (above 1 mil a year) include 'Snooki' and the 'Situation'.
Seedy,
Take it easy, Socrates...not sure where you learned to make or refute an argument but throwing in outliers doesn't prove or disprove anything.
Last I checked, plenty of government and public union workers make middle class livings and we all know how low their IQs are! Kidding (kind of)
Good paying jobs are restricted to those who are able to balance and cultivate ability and ambition.
I think IQ has something to do with it, but my opinion is that the most important issue is under achieving. Outside of being retarded, most people with normal IQ's can learn a trade and work hard. I wouldn't call bankers and lawyers to be the smartest people even though those are high paying careers.
Smart people can be poor if they can't show up on time, can't stick it out through tough times, can't modulate their emotions. Also, what kind of intelligence are we talking about. I am a believer of EQ and IQ.
IQ is a factor, but it's just one of many.
The other thing is this: I'd rather deal with someone who is average intelligence and hard working vs a smart but lazy guy. Plenty of potheads I know are simply brilliant, but they never DO anything.....meanwhile, some of my coworkers really are very average people, but they make money because they show up to work in the morning and do their job.
Also remember that IQ only tests certain facets of the brain's processing power: reading, math, pattern recognition....but not other things like musical ability, interpersonal skills, cultural assimilation, motivation/energy levels, and work ethic. Certain population demographics also have built in advantages with IQ tests: this is hard to see, but very real. There's also the one trick pony phenomena: some of the stupidest people I've ever known are rich because they found something that makes them money, and while they don't really understand the bigger picture, they go where they payoff is.
IQ scores are a good general indicator, but saying you know what to expect from a person based on IQ is like saying you know what trades you'll make in a given market session based solely on the DOW......highly incomplete picture.
Not sure if anyone here knows what IQ actually measures. It's a tossed around word that is used by smart people who have had little success as the start of a phrase that then follows with but....
Try measuring smart in the same way first, then start comparing like with like.
Intelligence has very little correlation with money.
you can be the smartest muthafuckah on earth and grow up in shitty conditions and not have any opportunity to develop that intelligence.
i disagree entirely. ashkenazi jews have a mean iq of 115, which makes the rest of us look dull by comparison.
you can't tell me that the jews of europe got fucked pretty hard in the worst of conditions, yet they have developed their intelligence and intellect quite successfully.
as another example: dirt poor south koreans built their country, which was materially worse than africa and under double occupation 60 years ago, into an economic powerhouse. their mean iq is something like 104.
let's just admit that some of the poor and unsuccessful are at least partially responsible for their own messes. i am all for compassion but fuck this ignorant paternalism.
three words:
jean philippe rushton
Dude, really?
oh yeah.
Intelligence and IQ research as a rule sucks ass, because none other than he, jensen and vanhanen have bothered to be rigorous about it. and that is exactly what makes that trio the hated pariahs of the psychometrics community.
Two words: Charles Murray
Just one more thing, all the testing and real world results support us. Us being those who think that IQ is genetic and highly correlated with success.
So the burden for proof is on the people who believe that it's nurture, not nature, that is responsible for IQ to prove us wrong.
Murray is so often quoted out of context, it's criminal.
I love how you just assumed you were correct and shifted the burden of proof on to people who think you are wrong. How about you dig up some of the research and prove it to us? Because frankly I think you are full of shit. I wonder who has the higher iq...the i bankers or the engineers designing the shit we use everyday, but who gets paid more??
You guys should read Success Intelligence by Robert J. Sternberg, it may change your outlook about IQ and the importance of having analytical intelligence.
The classic on the subject of IQ and income is probably the bell curve. Not every person with a high IQ is rich and it is certainly not a guarantee of success in life, however most high earning professions, be it banking, medicine, corporate law tend to be populated by intelligent people.
I'm not sure intellect helps you much once you get past an IQ of 130. Take a look at Physics PhDs. Can't get there without an IQ of 140, earn an average of $25K/year (Obviously the trading/quant world is a huge exception.)
Being smart is hardly a guarantee of being rich. It is just a guarantee that you probably won't be starving.
The smartest people (IQ of 140 and above) for the most part do not care about earning substantial sums of money. Finding neutrinos that move faster than the speed of light is likely to get them off more than a 7 figure bonus.
Social skills are much more important than raw IQ if your goal is to make a lot of money
Part of the issue in correlating success with extreme intelligence is social skills, or lack thereof. Studying engineering, I met tons of brilliant people, but often the smartest kids weren't particularly well adjusted. They often are focussed on a different paradigm of success, and in some cases, exceptionally smart people look down on people/society as a whole for not being up to their standard of intelligence. This mindset does not set you up well for success in business.
One of my smartest friends from undergrad has struggled in his career because of this. He works in a very interesting area of cutting edge technology development for the defense industry, but he thinks all of his managers and the people on the business side of his company are idiots. This has hindered his career development because he can't/won't figure out the politics needed to advance.
Upper Middle Class=top 2% of wage earners
^^ that's what I'm thinking... according to the 2006 Census, the top 1.5% of households made over $250k a year
So wouldn't that be considered upper class?... relative to location of course
Think about where those 250K+ households are centered, places like the Northeast, Silicon Valley, Chicago and the like where 250K doesn't go as far as Tupelo or Pensacola.
Yeah, but OP said that in most places, 250k would be considered upper middle class. When I think in most places 250k would be considered upper class, with those exceptions you mentioned.
Think about where those 250K+ households are centered, places like the Northeast, Silicon Valley, Chicago and the like where 250K doesn't go as far as Tupelo or Pensacola.
$250K/year stretches a long way in Chicago. A 2500 square foot house in one of the rich north-shore suburbs starts at around $400-$500K these days, and you're looking at $8K in property taxes for that tops. Groceries are 20-30% cheaper, bars are 50% cheaper, even high end restaurants are 30-40% less expensive.
Sorry, didn't meant to get us on another midwestern tangent. So how bout them Yankees?
$250K/year in Tupelo is the NKI.
250k in Angola is royalty...just sayin
Also bound to get you killed and robbed, or pronounced a traitor and have all your belongings expropriated.
And IQ is highly correlated with success?? What scientific study can even prove or disprove that? The idea of success is up to whoever wants to interpret it.
People with low IQs can be successful, it's about determination. A high IQ ain't gettin you shit if you're not willing to work towards anything.
I would say that high IQ is more strongly correlated with affluence, and low IQ more strongly correlated with modest means. However, that is far from a hard rule (another beauty of capitalism!). Having grown up in paradise during a construcution boom, I met many very uneducated (probably even straight up stupid) people from a variety of ethnic backgrounds (pacific islander/asian/white) making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year running their own construction firms. I'd say in a lot of situations, being in the right place at the right time is way more important than being smart when it comes to financial success.
Given the choice though, better to be born smart than not.
Emotional IQ is a much more valuable asset than traditional IQ.
http://www.nytimes.com/pages/national/class/
Man you guys have high standards for upper middle ^^
If poverty is a function of stupidity, then clearly its not the fault of those not well-off that they were born with lower iq's. Imo, iq's start evening out in any society once the majority of people can read/write proficiently.
my old land lord didn't even finish middle school from Vietnam and the dude owns a block of houses in a middle class neighborhood in San Francisco. The guy is not exactly a smart guy, but he got more balls than anyone I have met.
I seriously don't think a high IQ will have a high positive correlation to an income where the US govt will consider as affluent.
Not finishing middle school does not mean he has a low IQ.
how do you know he isn't a smart guy?
thinking that IQ and poverty are corellated is Horseshit..
There is something called the Matthew effect (after the New Testament verse that goes, “For unto everyone that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance. But from him that hath not shall be taken away even that which he hath”)
Anyways, 1920's this guy, Lewis Terman, tracked a group of gifted children and predicted that they will become the best of the best on their fields as grown ups.
So what happened? almost none of the genius children from the lowest social and economic class ended up making a name for themselves.”
In general, most poor people are poor because they come from poor families and viceversa.
Laboriosam repellendus illo fugit. Rerum iusto facilis ut consequuntur officia facere. Impedit in sed esse at necessitatibus.
See All Comments - 100% Free
WSO depends on everyone being able to pitch in when they know something. Unlock with your email and get bonus: 6 financial modeling lessons free ($199 value)
or Unlock with your social account...
Laudantium ducimus ullam eos placeat aut consectetur. Neque non totam recusandae id eum eveniet necessitatibus.
Repellat totam sed nesciunt iure sit. Fuga iste deleniti et ea est. Voluptatem eveniet aut dolorem sunt praesentium quo rerum. Qui architecto dolores eligendi et pariatur necessitatibus.
Suscipit quam nam illum sint doloremque consequuntur. Rem ut quia est eaque qui adipisci dolores. Eos impedit velit explicabo magni.