Socio-economic status (SES) basically means income.
That might be true in a given society at a given time. But there is a major difference in that income is absolute and positive sum, while SES is relative and zero sum. So there is an upper bound to SES: When you dominate everyone else. And if you are looking for social benefits rather than competitive ones, increasing income is an option, but increasing SES is not.
(The details of the social and political system you live in can change your ability to take advantage of those things Prof Friedman describes. Over most of the developed world you have lots of opportunity to multiply the universes across which SES is zero sum.)
I think the presenter took the data from an earlier study. The numbers on the x scale are categorical.
That’s a good point about SES having a natural upper bound. It’s not really a natural upper bound, because you have to know the population size and choose the number of categories you want in order to see where the mean of your top cluster falls. (Or else you have to plot Bill Gates on your graph.)
That might be true in a given society at a given time. But there is a major difference in that income is absolute and positive sum, while SES is relative and zero sum. So there is an upper bound to SES: When you dominate everyone else. And if you are looking for social benefits rather than competitive ones, increasing income is an option, but increasing SES is not.
David D. Friedman (and I) disagree with you: http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2006/10/economics-of-status.html
(The details of the social and political system you live in can change your ability to take advantage of those things Prof Friedman describes. Over most of the developed world you have lots of opportunity to multiply the universes across which SES is zero sum.)
Great link, thanks!
I think the presenter took the data from an earlier study. The numbers on the x scale are categorical.
That’s a good point about SES having a natural upper bound. It’s not really a natural upper bound, because you have to know the population size and choose the number of categories you want in order to see where the mean of your top cluster falls. (Or else you have to plot Bill Gates on your graph.)