T1B

Middle-class youths, not the poor, are providing the bulk of wartime recruits to the armed forces, according to a new study by a conservative think tank.

The Heritage Foundation research paper found that a higher percentage of middle-class and upper-middle-class families have been providing enlistees for the war on Islamic militants since the September 11 attacks on the United States.

Researchers matched the ZIP codes of recruits over the past five years with federal government estimates of household incomes in those neighborhoods. Contrary to complaints from some liberal lawmakers and pundits, the data show that the poor are not shouldering the bulk of the military's need for new soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines.

The poorest neighborhoods provided 18 percent of recruits in prewar 1999 and 14.6 percent in 2003. By contrast, areas where household incomes ranged from $30,000 to $200,000 provided more than 85 percent.

"We found that recruits tend to come from middle-class areas, with disproportionately fewer from low-income areas," said the report, prepared by Tim Kane, an Air Force Academy graduate and economics scholar. "Overall, the income distribution of military enlistees is more similar to than different from the income distribution of the general population."

The debate was begun in 2002 by Rep. Charles B. Rangel, New York Democrat, as U.S. troops were fighting in Afghanistan and preparing for war in Iraq.

"A disproportionate number of the poor and members of minority groups make up the enlisted ranks of the military, while most privileged Americans are underrepresented or absent," Mr. Rangel wrote in the New York Times. The lawmaker called on the Bush administration to reinstate compulsory service. {bolded for BSmack}

Mr. Rangel's Washington office did not respond yesterday to the Heritage report.

The draft was discontinued in 1973, and the all-volunteer force eventually grew into what many national security officials see as the best-trained military force in history.

The Heritage report states that median household income for all enlisted recruits in 1999 was $41,141, compared with the national median of $41,994. By 2003, the recruit household income reached $42,822, when adjusted for inflation.

"In other words, on average, recruits in 2003 were from wealthier neighborhoods than were recruits in 1999," said the report, titled, "Who Bears the Burden? Demographic Characteristics of U.S. Military Recruits Before and After 9/11."

Mr. Kane said overall evidence "is at odds with the image, painted by some supporters of the draft, that the military exploits poor, ignorant young Americans by using slick advertising that promises technical careers in the military to dupe them into trading their feeble opportunities in the private sector for a meager role as cannon fodder."

About 98 percent of all enlistees from 1999 to 2003 had a high school diploma, compared with 75 percent of nonrecruits nationwide.

"In an education context, rather than attracting underprivileged young Americans, the military seems to be attracting above-average Americans," Mr. Kane wrote.

DrDetroit wrote:The poorest neighborhoods provided 18 percent of recruits in prewar 1999 and 14.6 percent in 2003. By contrast, areas where household incomes ranged from $30,000 to $200,000 provided more than 85 percent.

DrDetroit wrote:Nice dodge, BSmack. You're carryingon the fine tradition of your party, both in issuing vacuous proclamations of the military and then ducking when confronted with contrary evidence.

About 98 percent of all enlistees from 1999 to 2003 had a high school diploma, compared with 75 percent of nonrecruits nationwide.

I thought this to be an interesting piece of information.

DrDetroit wrote:It's kinda funny seeing B and Bushice quibbling on the margins and ignoring the larger point. But who is surprised? Their central argument just got blasted to pieces.

Face it, the democrats argument that the lower class and uneducated are fighting this war in disproportionate numbers simply rings hollow...but you guys can continue your class warfare shit, you've only been running it for forty years now.

edit -- btw - blacks are sure doing their part to drag down the graduation rate.

frodo_biguns wrote:The lefties tried the same thing on the Vietnam War. I love it when they play that card. It shows how ignornat they are when you give them the numbers.

DrDetroit wrote:Just a quick search yielded this...



1998 graduation rate was 71%...

The formula that Greene uses appears reasonable and straightforward and takes into account all those students who never enroll in high school and therefore, are not counted in the data used to determine graduation rates.

DrDetroit wrote:No spinning here...simply presenting data.

I notice that the data you have linked to simply tracks kids after they've enrolled in high school. Of course that makes the situation better because it doesn't count students that never make it to high school. I don't know if 20% is accurate or otherwise, but that data is what it is.

Nonetheless, the issue still stands, the Democrats class warfare argument is bunk.

Your stats are deliberately skewed. Anybody who thinks a 30k a year FAMILY income is anything but poor is on fucking crack. Around these parts, you better have twice that if you want to do anything but scrape from check to check.

Show me the percentage who serve from families over 60k. How about it?

Mikey wrote:

frodo_biguns wrote:The lefties tried the same thing on the Vietnam War. I love it when they play that card. It shows how ignornat they are when you give them the numbers.

Guess what?
There was a draft during Vietnam.

Using a method that involves trying to track individual students the Dallas Independent School District in Texas reports an annual dropout rate of 1.3%.22 This number is implausibly low. Consider that according to my calculations Dallas has a graduation rate of only 52%. Even if 1.3% compounded over several years it does not come close to matching the picture drawn by my graduation rate. If only 1.3% of students dropout each year, how is it that Dallas had 9,914 students in 8th grade in 1993 but only 5,659 graduates in 1998 while the total student population in the district went up by 10.5%? It cannot be that several thousand students moved out of town while the whole city and school district population was increasing. It cannot be that thousands of students were held back a grade and that no students were held back a grade in the cohort from the year before. Frankly there is no reasonable explanation for what happened to those several thousand students in Dallas other than that they dropped out, making the 1.3% event dropout rate simply unbelievable.

DrDetroit wrote:So now 60K is the threshhold? Why not $45,00 or $50,000? of course it's because you're simply picking and choose arbitrary numbers and are not at all interested in anything besides playing the class warfare game.

I chose 60k because that is what it takes for a family of 4 to live something even remotely approaching a middle class lifestyle. And trust me, that's not going to get you many luxuries these days. But you could afford a mortgage on a small house (at least out here in WNY) and perhaps a car payment.

DrDetroit wrote:Well, according to Heritage ( http://www.heritage.org/Research/Nation ... a05-08.cfm )

Under 30,000 = 14.6%
Over $50,000 = 22%

Now...wtf is your point, dumbshit?

DrDetroit wrote:Talk about being an intellectually dishonest piece of shit.

1) No one put forth the argument that the rich are rushing off or that the rich are overrepresented. This was a response to the Democrats argument that the poor are overrepresented.

2) $40,000 a year is not poor. $35,000 ain't poor. $25,000 a year is not poor. So fuck off with your bullshit.

BSmack wrote:

DrDetroit wrote:Talk about being an intellectually dishonest piece of shit.

1) No one put forth the argument that the rich are rushing off or that the rich are overrepresented. This was a response to the Democrats argument that the poor are overrepresented.

2) $40,000 a year is not poor. $35,000 ain't poor. $25,000 a year is not poor. So fuck off with your bullshit.

40k for a single person is not poor. 40k for a family of 4 to live on is.

Your stats do not address that issue. Until they do, you are nothing more than a damn liar.

Income was compared on a household basis, not an individual basis, meaning that recruits’ income was defined by their household of origin. This approach was used because youth are rarely pri­mary income earners, and many earn no income at all until after high school graduation. However, the household income of their area of origin does serve as a basis for assessing whether the military recruits come from disproportion­ately poor backgrounds.

JHawkBCD wrote:Maybe they should start running the West Coast Offense.

DMike316 wrote:

JHawkBCD wrote:Maybe they should start running the West Coast Offense.

Oh hell yeah, that gets a RACK!

Mikey wrote:First of all, they are assuming that every recruit comes straight out of high school and still lives with his or her parents. Second, it assumes that average income in the recruits' households is the same as the average income in the entire area (based on ZIP code). You can't prove that recruits do not predominantly come from poor families by first assuming that they earn the average income in their area.

Even though they keep claiming that this data says something about the recruits themselves, it in truth proves nothing. It only applies to average household income in the ZIP code areas that the recruits come from. Many ZIP code areas include a wide range of incomes

DrDetroit wrote:it is that simple, but people like BSmack would have you believe that the government has an obligation to support the decision to have children and other lifestyle choices, hence their living wage/working poor scam.

According to a 2003 Census report --
91 percent of those in the lowest 10 percent of households -- all of whom are officially poor --
own color TVs;
74 percent own microwave ovens;
55 percent own VCRs;
47 percent own clothes dryers;
42 percent own stereos;
23 percent own dishwashers;
21 percent own computers; and
19 percent own garbage disposals.

Yeah, they're really fucking "poor" aren't they??

DrDetroit wrote:From the Washtington Times --

Dr. Detroit wrote:The Heritage Foundation research paper

DrDetroit wrote:A liar? Exactly what am I lying about, B?

$40K for a family of four is not poor. In that instance, if they are living check to check that's more a lifestyle decision than anything else.

So fuck off with your fucking sobbing bullshit.

And, of course, the data I have presented doesn't address what the definition of poor is...they never intended to, dumbass.

BSmack wrote:
Yep, that's right. SEVENTY EIGHT PERCENT of recruits come from housholds making less than 52k

Well hot damn!!! Look at all them rich folk rushing to go to Fallujah!!

You just couldn't more wrong if you tried. Everyone is expendable. Smart, stupid, black, white it doesn't matter a fucking bit. You're all green and you're all government property.

I guess that explains why Green Berets are the smartest human beings in uniform anywhere in the world, huh?

Variable wrote: If you've got the ability to perform a skill, even something small, chances are you won't be charging up a beachhead at a machine gun nest. But if you're dumb as a box of fucking rocks, rich or poor, your ass is gonna be in the first wave at Omaha beach.

Variable wrote:dumb as a box of fucking rocks

Mikey wrote: Even though they keep claiming that this data says something about the recruits themselves, it in truth proves nothing. It only applies to average household income in the ZIP code areas that the recruits come from. Many ZIP code areas include a wide range of incomes

Mister Bushice wrote:

Mikey wrote: Even though they keep claiming that this data says something about the recruits themselves, it in truth proves nothing. It only applies to average household income in the ZIP code areas that the recruits come from. Many ZIP code areas include a wide range of incomes

Good point. Our zip code has major disparities. Where I live (a small private community) the average family income is 6 figures, but 5 miles from here in the same zip where the majority of the people from the zip code live, the average income is easily 40k or below, and that would be the area most recruits are coming from, since all the spoiled rich kids here are off to college, not Iraq.