nimh wrote:georgeob1 wrote:My very strong impression, however, is that at least in continental Western Europe, social and economic mobility is MUCH, MUCH less than in the United States.
To requote some items:
In January 2003, Gary Younge wrote:
Quote:America prides itself on being a country where anyone who works hard enough can make it - a nation of taut bootstraps and rugged individualism. Reality in the last half century has been quite different. [..]
A recent study here showed that social mobility in America is actually decreasing *. Comparing the incomes and occupations of 2,749 fathers and sons from the 1970s to the 1990s, it was found that mobility had decreased. "In the last 25 years, a large segment of American society has become more vulnerable," says Professor Robert Perrucci of Purdue University.
"The cumulative evidence since the second world war is that measured mobility in the US is little different from Europe's, despite all the propaganda," writes Will Hutton in The World We're In.
* Reference appears to be to Earl Wysong, Robert Perrucci and David Wright, "Organizations, Resources, and Class Analysis: The Distributional Model and the U.S. Class Structure".
In July 2005, the Economist wrote:
Quote:In 1979-2000, the real income of the poorest fifth of American households rose by 6.4%, while that of the top fifth rose by 70% (and of the top 1% by 184%). As of 2001, that top 1% nabbed a fifth of America's personal income and controlled a third of its net worth. Again, this would not necessarily be a cause for worry, as long as it was possible for people to work their way up and down the ladder. Yet various studies also indicate that social mobility has weakened; indeed by some measures it may be worse than it is in crusty old Europe.
Some, including some academics, would say that American academia has shifted too close to the radical left to be a dependable source of commentary on the American experience anymore. Much is said of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, yadda yadda. Nimh excerpted the article, but I would bet my morning bagel that it didn't mention that the vast majority of America's 'rich' are first generation rich, and they accumulated their wealth the old fashioned way: they earned it.
And according to the economists that I read, the prospects for the next and future generations are just as good.
If the statistics are based on the fact that most people aren't sufficiently upward mobile to join the super rich then I don't think the American experience has changed much in the last 200+ years, but the fact that the number of the rich continues to increase says that nobody is really shut out. Some of us just aren't willing to put in the time and effort necessary, or we just didn't make the best choices, to get there. It should be a surprise to nobody that properly managed wealth increases wealth.
Otherwise, if the bean counters factor in the fact that most of the 'poor' will move squarely into the middle class in a relatively short time, they will find opportunities for Americans available to just about anybody who wants them and is willing to pay his/her dues to get the education, training, experience, references, and a work ethic necessary to get them.
A substantial chunk of the 'poor' in America are college students or young adults just starting out and within a few months or very few years, they will have moved comfortably into the mainstream. Another chunk of the 'poor' are retirees who report low incomes but who are living comfortably on their investments. In other words most of America's 'poor' are in that category only temporarily or by choice.
According to the economists I read, the majority of the hard core 'permanent' poor in America are those who didn't stay in school, spaced out on drugs and/or alcohol, got pregnant sans marriage, or grew up depending on the government to take care of them.
In other words, I would have to see more than one possibly biased study to believe that Americans are less upwardly mobile than they have ever been.
