Quiz: how much of a 1% elite bubble do you live in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question: What do they mean as "typical: 9"?

A typical (average) score for someone that fits that category would be a nine, even though the range of scores that could fit into that description is much broader.

OH, ok, thank you. Yes, that makes sense. B/c while I fit in that category, my # was higher (24). I think it was pulled that way by DH's family.

[Anonymous]

33 and the description is spot on. Grew up solidly middle class in a single income HH. Spouse and I are childless now and have a HH income of 250k but have lived in the city for a decade in neighborhoods where we are definitely the minority. But we also spend a lot of time with family in WV and dinners at applebees...maybe its the best of both worlds!

[Anonymous]

21. Grew up in Potomac, so I guess not that surprising.

I grew up and still live in Chevy Chase, and got a 48.

[Anonymous]

This is interesting. I scored a 28 when I answered that I knew an evangelical christian and was one myself. And that we ate at Applebees often (because of toddlers).

I retook the test because I figured out I misunderstood the evangelical question thinking they were asking if I knew a Christian (believe in God, etc.) and was one. So, I changed that answer to "no" and answered about Applebees truthfully if we went where we would go without screaming kids.

My score was lowered to a 7. With just those changes - all else being equal.

[Anonymous]

What? I got a 27. I live in PG County and frequent our local IHOP. I do however have NO idea who Jimmy Johnson is?

[Anonymous]

Jimmy J was the Dallas Cowboys coach who is now on Fox's NFL coverage. Jimmie J is a NASCAR driver.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Jimmy J was the Dallas Cowboys coach who is now on Fox's NFL coverage. Jimmie J is a NASCAR driver.

I cheated and asked my husband, since he is from TX and a Cowboys fan. He said "They're both Jimmy" I guessed there must have been a difference in spelling. But I don't watch NASCAR and neither does he - it's just something we happen to have heard in passing, through ESPN and pop culture references.

I had to laugh at the movie page - I thought King's Speech and Inception were a bit more highbrow, even though they did well at the box office. They weren't the typical comedy or action blockbuster.

[Anonymous]

62

[Anonymous]

The quiz itself is a bubble.

I grew up in a house with packed dirt floor and no running water. I got 11, what on earth? Just because I do not eat in chain restaurants, do not watch TV?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:53. Also grew up in a poor rural area and worked retail (and one factory job) for many years to help put myself through school. Now married to an attorney and have an advanced degree with a career in tech.

No wonder I think most of the posters on DCUM are clueless! Lots of really low scores so far.

It's funny though -- I consider myself to be fairly liberal, but my experiences living around people who were working class/poor make me less likely to cut them any slack...I remember seeing lots of abuse of welfare and SSD. People I know (still) back home who are just too lazy to get out of bed before 10am, or who can't keep a job for longer than a year or so (and not due to substance abuse or anything, just because they get "fed up" and "say f*ck it" one day). So I truly wonder if having a thinner-walled bubble means anything, anyway.

Interesting. Do you think there is a feeling of hopelessness when you grow up in that kind of environment? So you don't feel motivated to do much because it doesn't seem like you will get ahead no matter how hard you try?

That's an excellent question. Sorry it took me so long to respond (I didn't come back to this thread for...uh...9 pages, apparently!).

I don't discount that, to some extent, there are people in low SES who feel that way. It can be very discouraging to have people tell you you'll never amount to anything, or to have your attempts to better yourself undercut by family or friends who see it as their duty to "knock you down a peg" (for whatever reason, it's like poverty is a communicable disease and they are just hell bent on infecting you with it).

However, I don't buy that it's inevitable that people in difficult circumstances just give up. I have relatives who had the exact same circumstances as my parents, and their lives have turned out very differently -- my mother worked her way up from a factory floor and a HS diploma to being an exec with an advanced degree. It's not like she had some amazing inborn gift -- she just worked DAMN hard to get there (she went to work at 5am to put in extra time, for example). My dad committed a felony (and not a white-collar one), but he still pulled himself back together and became the primary breadwinner again, after almost 2 decades of working hard to overcome his past. My relatives, on the other hand, were given things my parents were not (they are mostly much younger) -- one uncle was gifted a HOUSE by my grandfather, but he lost it (!) due to nonpayment of the taxes (can you believe that!?). One aunt is scamming SSD. None of them finished college (though all of them tried and dropped out). None of them has held a job for longer than about 2 years. They all smoke, drink, carouse, watch endless TV, and basically do little else. Their children are the same. They play the government for whatever they can, and work only if they can't get what they want through their scamming.

I really can't say that they had fewer chances or harder lives than my parents. If anything, they had more given to them. Perhaps that's the difference? My parents were expected to work hard, by the time their younger siblings came along, my grandparents were older and less able to discipline them. I know that family culture (the "culture of poverty") plays some role in the perpetuation of low SES households in America, but personally I struggle to reconcile poverty as an abstract societal ill (that, as a liberal, I believe needs to be dealt with humanely and by us all) and the self-inflicted poverty of the people I know and am related to. Believe me that any government program aimed at them would be throwing good money after bad.

Anyway, I always suspect I'm the only person on DCUM who has this shameful family past and still tries hard to be a good liberal and donate, help others, and remain compassionate. It's just damned hard sometimes.

[Anonymous]

Pp, I do not get what you are trying to say.
But then I grew up in a lower middle class area that had its share of poverty, and did not ever meet people like the ones you describe.
I think you were raised in a bubble

[Anonymous]

I scored a 58 and now live in one of the most exclusive areas in DC. Interesting in how I have "average" media habits in that I neither watch TV nor blockbuster movies. Am a voracious consumer of information, however, so even if I do not watch NASCAR, I know who Johnson is. Probably more accurate to be in the 42-100 category as I have not lived in a working class neighborhood in 25 years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:53. Also grew up in a poor rural area and worked retail (and one factory job) for many years to help put myself through school. Now married to an attorney and have an advanced degree with a career in tech.

No wonder I think most of the posters on DCUM are clueless! Lots of really low scores so far.

It's funny though -- I consider myself to be fairly liberal, but my experiences living around people who were working class/poor make me less likely to cut them any slack...I remember seeing lots of abuse of welfare and SSD. People I know (still) back home who are just too lazy to get out of bed before 10am, or who can't keep a job for longer than a year or so (and not due to substance abuse or anything, just because they get "fed up" and "say f*ck it" one day). So I truly wonder if having a thinner-walled bubble means anything, anyway.

Interesting. Do you think there is a feeling of hopelessness when you grow up in that kind of environment? So you don't feel motivated to do much because it doesn't seem like you will get ahead no matter how hard you try?

That's an excellent question. Sorry it took me so long to respond (I didn't come back to this thread for...uh...9 pages, apparently!).

I don't discount that, to some extent, there are people in low SES who feel that way. It can be very discouraging to have people tell you you'll never amount to anything, or to have your attempts to better yourself undercut by family or friends who see it as their duty to "knock you down a peg" (for whatever reason, it's like poverty is a communicable disease and they are just hell bent on infecting you with it).

However, I don't buy that it's inevitable that people in difficult circumstances just give up. I have relatives who had the exact same circumstances as my parents, and their lives have turned out very differently -- my mother worked her way up from a factory floor and a HS diploma to being an exec with an advanced degree. It's not like she had some amazing inborn gift -- she just worked DAMN hard to get there (she went to work at 5am to put in extra time, for example). My dad committed a felony (and not a white-collar one), but he still pulled himself back together and became the primary breadwinner again, after almost 2 decades of working hard to overcome his past. My relatives, on the other hand, were given things my parents were not (they are mostly much younger) -- one uncle was gifted a HOUSE by my grandfather, but he lost it (!) due to nonpayment of the taxes (can you believe that!?). One aunt is scamming SSD. None of them finished college (though all of them tried and dropped out). None of them has held a job for longer than about 2 years. They all smoke, drink, carouse, watch endless TV, and basically do little else. Their children are the same. They play the government for whatever they can, and work only if they can't get what they want through their scamming.

I really can't say that they had fewer chances or harder lives than my parents. If anything, they had more given to them. Perhaps that's the difference? My parents were expected to work hard, by the time their younger siblings came along, my grandparents were older and less able to discipline them. I know that family culture (the "culture of poverty") plays some role in the perpetuation of low SES households in America, but personally I struggle to reconcile poverty as an abstract societal ill (that, as a liberal, I believe needs to be dealt with humanely and by us all) and the self-inflicted poverty of the people I know and am related to. Believe me that any government program aimed at them would be throwing good money after bad.

Anyway, I always suspect I'm the only person on DCUM who has this shameful family past and still tries hard to be a good liberal and donate, help others, and remain compassionate. It's just damned hard sometimes.

You're not. I'm the 61 who followed you and wrote, ditto. Although not family, I grew up in a very low-income neighborhood and so far, I'm the only one who made it out. I often wonder (survivor guilt?) how come I made it and they didn't. Certainly, it wasn't a question of brains. I was not the smartest. For some reason though, I persevered and the others didn't. I struggle to understand why. The closest I've come to an explanation, and it's a half-*ssed one at that, is that people have different psyches and some people are just more able to handle big obstacles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:"I don't think the point is that if you make some effort to eat at Outback rather then bistro bis you're suddenly in touch...it's more like...try travelling somewhere where outback is your only option for going out for dinner. That's why I've been to those places. I have family and friends who talk about NASCAR, so even though I've never seen a race, I know who Jimmie Johnson is. You don't have to be interested in the STUFF, per se, to be interested in people and places where the experience is different from the bubble here. "

I say this gently, but I don't have enough vacation time to go to those places. I like to vacation in places with historical significance. I'm not interested in spending any of my 3 weeks off in rural America.

This is a very interesting point, I hate chain restaurants-just because the food really doesn't agree with me and it tastes pretty bad-but I worked in Frederick about 10 years ago-before Volt opened up.
It was awful! There was *nowhere* to get a remotely healthy lunch and I mean *nowhere*. But they did have Roy Rogers which I ended up eating quite a bit
So if people don't have access to healthy food, like in bad areas where grocery stores sell half-rotten fruits and veggies, how are they supposed to eat healthy?
Did you know WIC (google it) didn't even cover fruits and veggies until just a few years ago?
Off stepping off my soap box now...

[Anonymous]

43 -- further out of the bubble than I imagined. Urban dweller with advanced degree and mid-$200K income. College-educated parents with income that veered sharply up and down. Mom's family was high income and dad's family farmed. I have embarassingly faux-high brow tastes (NPR and WETA listener, Queen's Speech watcher, unclear on who Jimmie/Jimmy Johnson is, can't stand fast food) but must have hit some other mainstream buttons. Hard to know exactly what skewed the results without taking it again. I do know some evangelical Christians and worked my way through school as a waitress.