K Steven Brown Profile
K Steven Brown

@KregSteven

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Director, Econ Mobility Policy @EquitableGrowth. Sociologist. Mobility, wealth/financial well-being, & racial equity. Fmr @UrbanInstitute. Personal account

Washington, DC
Joined June 2009
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@KregSteven
K Steven Brown
3 years
Finally, while more meaningfully integrative institutions are important, they do not negate efforts to directly strengthen financial well-being for lower-income folks. We need more supportive institutions and more wealth. It's both/and. /end.
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@KregSteven
K Steven Brown
3 years
Next, we need to be careful that the policy solution doesn’t turn into reductive charity, with things like programs where high SES folks send their kids to “economically inclusive camps” for a few weeks in the summer. There’s much deeper work to be done. /13.
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@KregSteven
K Steven Brown
3 years
Some cautionary points to close: With increasing self-segregation by high-income folks, building and supporting integrative institutions is getting harder. Especially now with many high SES folks working remotely and many lower SES delivering their groceries & packages. 12/.
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@KregSteven
K Steven Brown
3 years
…Integration by class & race that moves beyond simple diversity, but allows for meaningful engagement, personal development, and shared power and goals. 11/.
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@KregSteven
K Steven Brown
3 years
If we want to increase opportunity & mobility, integrative institutions matter more than just about anything else – neighborhoods, schools, colleges, workplaces, churches, etc… 10/.
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@KregSteven
K Steven Brown
3 years
How we reconcile is that this finding just throws more support and weight around the institutional and environmental arguments that @OppInsight and many others (particularly in sociology) have found. Segregation is deeply harmful to opportunity. 9/.
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@KregSteven
K Steven Brown
3 years
It deeply confounds individualistic arguments for the American Dream, as if all one has to do is work hard, to go to school, and get a good job. 8/.
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@KregSteven
K Steven Brown
3 years
What’s a bit counterintuitive or surprising is the *degree* to which economic connectedness (e.g., having rich friends) matters – that it’s more related to moving up the income ladder than anything else the @OppInsights team has found 7/.
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@KregSteven
K Steven Brown
3 years
Basically, no bootstrapper is an island. 6/.
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@KregSteven
K Steven Brown
3 years
How it’s intuitive: There’s a reason for saying “it’s not what you know but who you know.” Environment shapes social experience, support networks, & exposure to info & opportunity. Lots of work in sociology & psychology confirm this (e.g. neighborhood effects, network theory). 5/.
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@KregSteven
K Steven Brown
3 years
It’s intriguing (and important!) work, because depending on the frame, it’s intuitive and counter-intuitive 4/.
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@KregSteven
K Steven Brown
3 years
For people from low-income backgrounds, having richer friends is more strongly related to higher income in adulthood than income inequality, high poverty neighborhoods, living in racially segregated places, & even schooling! 3/.
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