Raj Chetty continues to underscore that the convenience of the affluent dooms us

Raj Chetty would pretty much be called a “superstar academic” by many at this point. All his research seems to get spotlighted in various key places, and he has new stuff out now in Nature that was the main focus of the main New York Times newsletter this morning, as well as being a focus of Planet Money’s newsletter. The central idea of the new research is that (and this is very logical almost to the point that maybe we didn’t need to do this research) if you’re poor and hang out up the economic ladder, be it at church or a gym or whatever, you are more likely to experience upward mobility. Friends in high places, etc. It’s based on a lot of inputs, including 72 million Facebook connections representing 81 billion data points or something like that. I realize Facebook is a social scientist’s wet dream, but at some point do we need to stop and ask: are Facebook friendships real enough that we should be extrapolating societal conditions from them? I’m honestly not sure.

If you’re unfamiliar with Chetty, this is one of his big hits, and something that will make most sociology undergrads who like to read long-form journalism get a woody: