About 50% of Americans Have Below-Average Intelligence

That's a statistical fact that came to mind when I was out at Wally World getting my oil changed this morning. You can chalk that up along side the fact that the average American has approximately 1.0 testicles (to the nearest tenth of a percent).

Meanwhile, back to Wal-Mart. While I was coming back from the grocery side of the building with some store-brand mini-wheats and granola bars (that's why they have the cheap oil changes; you're there for a bit and will likely do some shopping. Can you say "loss-leader," boys and girls?), I contemplated a couple of "associates" in the sporting goods section. It might be an unfair thing to judge intelligence from listening to a snippet of conversation, but they struck me as rather average if not a smidge below. That might be a bit biased, coming from an academic environment, but the pair seemed just plain folks, middle of the pack, high on the left slope of the bell curve.

Wal-Mart has replaced McDonalds as the most-hated employer. In days of yore (the 90s), people complained about minimum-wagey burger-flipping McJobs. Being an "associate" is a step up from a McJob but not too much. However, there is room for advancement; people with discipline and some smarts can move up into management and make a solid wage. Others will work there while going to school, escaping once they get the background to move on. Still others will have this as their a decent approximation of their highest and best use.

Not everyone's going to be a college professor or a engineer or a doctor. If pay correlates with IQ, less-intelligent people will have lower-paying jobs; if half of the people have below average IQs, then half the people will have below-average wages. Of course, most people's abilities will tend to cluster at the middle, so that most people will have a near-average wage; that's what we call the "middle class."

While we as a society need to give everybody the opportunity to succeed, not everyone will get advanced degrees and pull down six-figure incomes. I used to get a six figure income while I was going to graduate school; the problem was that two of those figures were to the right of the decimal point.

People look down their noses at telemarketers, convenience-store clerks, fast-food cashiers who ask you whether you want to supersize it, Wally-World associates and a lot of other low-wage, low-prestige jobs. Half of the population's going to be below the median, both in pay and in prestige. What we need to work on is to create a thriving society where the average keeps going up.

Someone's going to have to pick up the trash, man the school cafeteria, drive the trucks and stock the grocery-store shelves. Hopefully, those people will move on to better things, but let's respect those who are there and the businesses who hire them. Some would like them to get a lot more respect on payday, with better wages and more health benefits; however, that's going to raise prices and may force companies out of business, which will mean zero wages and no benes for those who are laid off.

Here’s to you, Wally-Word Associate. May you move on to better things and keep up the good work.

[Update 4/21 6AM No, Richard, I haven't read the articles in question; Wally-World has been in media coverage a lot and it just built into an article. My more recent prompting might have been a new find, Truck and Barter, an economics web site who have a sub-site, Always Low Prices, devoted to Wal-Mart coverage. ALP does have a link to the Economist piece you mentioned. I will read it later this morning.

The using-cheap-imports-while-being-jingoistic meme is worth pondering. That's a post in itself.]

Comments

[Richard Shuford]

One might think that the esteemed Dr. Byron has been reading either National Review or The Economist, both of which ran cover stories this week about Wal-Mart.

My complaint about Wal-Mart is that the stores are draped with American flags, and advertising has featured testimonies about all the hundreds of American jobs that have been saved (or even created) by producers of products sold by Wal-Mart. However, if you actually examine the countries of origin of most products on the shelf at Wal-Mart, you very commonly see "Made in China".

This is an international-trade-balance bait and switch.

...RSS

[Chris Burgwald]

Mark, this is somewhat tangential to your post, but it is related, and I'm curious about your take: it seems to me that we (conservatives) generally look at Americans as consumers when we consider economic policy. So, for instance, we talk about how free trade is better for the American consumer, or how Wal-Mart is better for the consumer, and so on. But what about the American as producer/worker? Here's an example: last year a friend sent an article about how Rubbermaid was on the ropes b/c of their past attempts to "stand up" to Wal-Mart, and how a Rubbermaid factory was probably going to be closing, costing a couple hundred people their jobs. My friend remarked that the journalist who wrote the article had to get a clue: Rubbermaid was where it was, but the American consumers saved 2xx million dollars last year b/c Rubbermaid went with the cheap competitor. My response was this: if you divide the savings out, the average consumer saved a couple of bucks b/c of Wal-Mart's decision, while there are 200+ people who are out $30,000+.

Okay, I'm rambling some, so I'll stop now. I guess I'm just curious about your thoughts on this.

[Bene Diction]

I know your post is about economics, but...
A healthy emotional Q, (EQ) will help someone in life much more than a high IQ.
You are a professor so you must see fair numbers of highly educated, high IQ people that could almost be considered vegetative in the EQ department.:^)

[Kathy Thomas]

This article is quite informative: I can Identify with people such as myself.. last year I Took a battery of test Results were "low average intelligence" At age 5 I had bulbar polio . I remember some of that still....I could not swallow or walk . I recovered . and was the poster child for polio . My parents and I traveled to New York for that .. also I was diagnosed with MS
age 41, that resolved it self ..
I am 61.very forgetful and depressed ...meds do help the depression .however I have been called stupid as a child ...kids from school and my parents , I will close for now .
Kathy Thomas

[Kathleen]

I just stumbled upon this blog while researching the mind-numbingly dumb cult of scientology (I refuse to dignify it with a capital "s"). Then I read the comment by Kathy Thomas. Although my IQ has been recorded at between 118 to 130 (guess it depends on whether or not I listen to Mozart before taking the test), I have suffered serious memory problems to downright brain fog and as of yet, no medical explanation. I wonder (no, it has nothing to do with the la-la land religion of the scientologists I've been researching) if some tampering of our environment has caused the more susceptible, immunity-deficient subjects in our society to fall victim to enviro-chemicals in our food-chain path. Just a thought. Hey, they're killing off the honey bee!

I absolutely abhor that Kathy would be called "stupid" by anyone -- but by her own parents!!! I know my family of super-achievers wonder what happened to me. I sense it both by their treatment of me and by the way they snub me. My frustration lies in the fact that most of my interests are intellectually demanding. I love to read literature and scientific tomes, but it's damn hard to have an intelligent conversation about your reading material when you can't remember what you read. This problem is more prevalent than one might expect.

Kathy wants answers and wants to be accepted just like the rest of us. Brain power is not synonomous with value. I believe that "true intelligence" -- perhaps that which cannot be measured -- is not the sizing up of another human being based on "ancient" tribal needs, but rather a true larger understanding of life on this planet and how even the tiniest of organisms play a part. We should transcend that -- be aware of it -- and be open to the understanding of what a fellow human goes through on a day-to-day basis in his or her's struggle to survive on this planet. I would extend that to all life on this planet but that would imply a responsibility that few would accept.

Kathy, I am so sorry for your ordeal. You were never stupid -- you were just born into a system that has yet to get it.