Prometheus 6

The picture that emerges from all the quintiles, correlations and percentages is of a nation in which, overall, "the current generation of adults is better off than the previous one," as one of the studies notes. The median income of the families studied was $55,600 in the late 1960s; their children's median family income was $71,900. However, this rising tide has not lifted all boats equally. The rich have seen far greater income gains than have the poor.

Did you know that if the rich get richer and no one else does, the median income goes up?

Tattered Dream
Who'll Tackle the Issue Of Upward Mobility?
By Eugene Robinson
Friday, November 23, 2007; A39

We're not who we think we are.

The American self-image is suffused with the golden glow of opportunity. We think of the United States as a land of unlimited possibility, not so much a classless society but as a place where class is mutable -- a place where brains, energy and ambition are what counts, not the circumstances of one's birth. But three new studies suggest that Horatio Alger doesn't live here anymore.

The Economic Mobility Project, an ambitious research initiative led by the Pew Charitable Trusts, looked at the economic fortunes of a large group of families over time, comparing the income of parents in the late 1960s with the income of their children in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Here's the finding that jumps out at me:

"The 'rags to riches' story is much more common in Hollywood than on Main Street. Only 6 percent of children born to parents with family income at the very bottom move to the very top."

That's right, just 6 percent of children born to parents who ranked in the bottom fifth of the sample, in terms of income, were able to bootstrap their way into the top fifth. Meanwhile, an incredible 42 percent of children born into that lowest quintile are still stuck at the bottom, having been unable to climb a single rung of the income ladder.

The study notes that even in Britain -- a nation we tend to think of as burdened with a hidebound, anachronistic class system -- children who are born poor have a better chance of moving up.

The Economic Mobility Project can't be accused of having an ideological bias; it's a collaboration, led by Pew, involving four leading think tanks that pretty much cover the political spectrum -- the American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the Heritage Foundation and the Urban Institute.

"Both left and right can care about this," said John E. Morton, Pew's managing director of economic policy. "Traditionally, Americans have been ready to accept high levels of inequality because of our belief in the American dream. What happens if we can't believe in the dream any longer?"