Is it still possible to climb to the top in America?
In a paper released this week, a group of economists found the prospects for upward mobility, the theme of the American dream, haven't changed in the last several decades.
The ability to move up the income ladder hasn't worsened.
Raj Chetty, one of the authors of the study, is professor of economics at Harvard University:
"What we mean by upward mobility in this study is a child's chances of moving up in the income distribution.
One way to measure that is the chance that a child, say, from the bottom fifth of the income distribution reaches the top fifth of the income distribution.
You could also measure it in other ways.
What is the average outcome of children from low-income families or what are their odds of reaching the middle class?
No matter which way we define upward mobility, the main finding of our most recent study is that your odds of climbing up the income ladder haven't changed significantly over the past three decades or so.
I think many Americans have the perception, and certainly the public conversation has been that prospects for upward mobility are declining in the U.S., and, to the contrary, what we found is that your odds of climbing up the income ladder haven't actually changed.
One of the trends that we have seen is that inequality has increased, and conventional wisdom is that greater inequality might make upward mobility more difficult.
One way to picture that is think of income distribution as a ladder, and while inequality has been increasing, that means the rungs of the ladder have grown further apart.
So you might have thought, intuitively, that's going to make it harder for kids to climb up that ladder if they are starting from a low position.
That turns out not to have happened, and so perhaps one hypothesis that other things have changed at the same time.
Over the past several decades, we have had significant improvements in civil rights, expanded access to higher education, and a number of other anti-poverty efforts that might have offset that detrimental effects of other forces in the economy."
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june14/mobility_01-24.html
In a paper released this week, a group of economists found the prospects for upward mobility, the theme of the American dream, haven't changed in the last several decades.
The ability to move up the income ladder hasn't worsened.
Raj Chetty, one of the authors of the study, is professor of economics at Harvard University:
"What we mean by upward mobility in this study is a child's chances of moving up in the income distribution.
One way to measure that is the chance that a child, say, from the bottom fifth of the income distribution reaches the top fifth of the income distribution.
You could also measure it in other ways.
What is the average outcome of children from low-income families or what are their odds of reaching the middle class?
No matter which way we define upward mobility, the main finding of our most recent study is that your odds of climbing up the income ladder haven't changed significantly over the past three decades or so.
I think many Americans have the perception, and certainly the public conversation has been that prospects for upward mobility are declining in the U.S., and, to the contrary, what we found is that your odds of climbing up the income ladder haven't actually changed.
One of the trends that we have seen is that inequality has increased, and conventional wisdom is that greater inequality might make upward mobility more difficult.
One way to picture that is think of income distribution as a ladder, and while inequality has been increasing, that means the rungs of the ladder have grown further apart.
So you might have thought, intuitively, that's going to make it harder for kids to climb up that ladder if they are starting from a low position.
That turns out not to have happened, and so perhaps one hypothesis that other things have changed at the same time.
Over the past several decades, we have had significant improvements in civil rights, expanded access to higher education, and a number of other anti-poverty efforts that might have offset that detrimental effects of other forces in the economy."
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/business/jan-june14/mobility_01-24.html