Harder for Americans to Rise From Lower Rungs
Benjamin Franklin did it. Henry Ford did it. And American life is built on the faith that others can do it, too: rise from humble origins to economic heights. “Movin’ on up,” George Jefferson-style, is not only a sitcom song but a civil religion.But many researchers have reached a conclusion that turns conventional wisdom on its head: Americans enjoy less economic mobility than their peers in Canada and much of Western Europe. The mobility gap has been widely discussed in academic circles, but a sour season of mass unemployment and street protests has moved the discussion toward center stage.At least five large studies in recent years have found the United States to be less mobile than comparable nations. Aprojectled by Markus Jantti, an economist at a Swedish university, found that 42 percent of American men raised in the bottom fifth of incomes stay there as adults. That shows a level of persistent disadvantage much higher than in Denmark (25 percent) and Britain (30 percent) — a country famous for its class constraints.
Meanwhile, just 8 percent of American men at the bottom rose to the top fifth. That compares with 12 percent of the British and 14 percent of the Danes.
Despite frequent references to the United States as a classless society, about 62 percent of Americans (male and female) raised in the top fifth of incomes stay in the top two-fifths, according to research by the Economic Mobility Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Similarly, 65 percent born in the bottom fifth stay in the bottom two-fifths.
tl;dr Bootstraps is a myth.
AKA why the idea that America is a land of “haves and soon-to-haves” is factually incorrect. -Jess
I’m reblogging this because A) always relevant, and B) Tumblr won’t let you send links in Asks, OR send fanmail to people you don’t follow/recently followed, so there’s no way to give this to the reader who asked for it other than reblogging or writing out the url with a bunch of parentheses in it. Thanks Tumblr, glad you have time to make quotes in bold and break useful extensions.
-Jess