Turns Out, Economic Mobility Isn’t Decreasing

Despite growing rhetoric to the contrary, upward economic mobility in the U.S. is just as possible now as it was fifty years ago.

The Harvard study determined the five top factors that affected upward economic mobility to be: segregation, inequality, schools, social capital, and family bonds. In short, studies show that integrated communities with a strong middle class, good education, high religious and civic involvement, and traditional families tend to be the most upwardly mobile.

A few takeaways:

Our mobility programs aimed at children- Head Start, Pell grants, etc. haven’t moved us any closer to their espoused goal. Fans of these programs may argue that their existence has staved off a decline in economic mobility that would otherwise have occurred, although I’m unconvinced market forces are working just as vigorously to stifle mobility as our litany of programs are working to increase it.

It is worth noting that geography tends to make a huge different in economic mobility. The deep southeast has the lowest upward mobility of all regions. It’s possible that families in rural Alabama feel less of the urge to leave their social stratosphere behind for the rarified air of large, urban salaries.

Some reactions to the study take this no-change report as a negative finding. We lag behind other “developed” countries such as Denmark and Canada in our upward mobility rate. I, for one, am happy to hear that we are maintaining a respectable level of opportunity to achieve. Perhaps the reason we lag behind other nations the passage on to our youngest generation that there is something to be said for being just as rich as your parents.