What’s the most important issue in American politics? In a narrow sense, the sputtering economy and ballooning deficits are likely to dominate the 2012 election season. But while every election has its own particular concerns, fundamentally it is to the American Dream that our politicians must tend — that libertarian and egalitarian bundle of values and hopes that transcend our partisan, economic, and social divisions.
When the Pew Economic Mobility Project (EMP) surveyed people about what the American Dream meant, it got widely ranging answers. Indiana’s governor, Mitch Daniels, recently hit on a common sentiment when he observed that “upward mobility from the bottom is the crux of the American promise.” But even those who would focus more broadly on the rising tide that lifts all boats should be concerned about the state of economic mobility in America. The economic inefficiency that results when much of the population is stuck at the bottom (and the top) means the tide may lift everyone less than it could.
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One way to assess the extent of mobility is to ask whether people tend to be better off than their parents were at the same age — whether they experience upward absolute mobility. Research for EMP conducted by my colleagues at the Brookings Institution Julia Isaacs, Isabel Sawhill, and Ron Haskins shows that two-thirds of 40-year-old Americans are in households with larger incomes than their parents had at the same age, even taking into account the fact that the cost of living has risen. That’s pretty impressive, but it actually understates the improvement between generations. Household size declined over these decades, so incomes now are divided up among fewer family members, leaving them better off than bigger households of the past. Another EMP study shows that when incomes are adjusted for household size, four out of five adults today are better off than their parents were at the same age.
The finding of pervasive upward absolute mobility flies in the face of liberal accounts of a stagnant middle class. These accounts generally conflate disappointing growth in men’s earnings with growth in household income, which has been impressive. Growth in women’s earnings has also been impressive, but economic pessimists have twisted these bright spots to fit a gloomy narrative. They claim that household incomes have kept pace only because wives have been forced into work to make up for the shrinking bacon their husbands bring home. That ignores the long-term trend of women’s obtaining more education in industrialized nations around the world, presumably with an intention to put it to use in the work force someday. It also ignores the evidence that married men rationally chose to reduce their work hours as their wives increased theirs (even as single men continued working the same hours), and the fact that employment grew more among the wives of better-educated men than among the wives of less-educated men.
Nevertheless, incomes have not grown as fast in recent decades as they did in the middle of the 20th century. While the vast majority of Americans end up better off than their parents, the difference is probably not as great as the improvement of their parents over their grandparents was.
There’s another way to look at intergenerational mobility — asking whether those whose parents were at the bottom or at the top relative to Americans as a whole end up in the same place in adulthood. This is the question of relative mobility. You may have a higher income than your parents did, but if that is generally true of your generation, then your rank may be no different than your parents’ rank was. It may even be lower. And having less than others can figure more prominently in our assessment of our well-being than does merely having more than our parents did — as may be the case with scarce commodities, such as homes in the best school districts or slots at the best universities.
It absolutely IS possible. BUT it generally requires that you have a goal and work hard for it consistently over time, lay off the xbox, drinking, drugs, partying, TV and months-long teenage road trips. A clean record and self-sacrifice are generally required as well. Oh and paying off your loans. Try it, kiddies. It builds character.
The American Dream is outlined succinctly in the Declaration of Independence, at least IMHO.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness -- That to secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed..."
This was, and should be, the driving force behind the American Dream.
- that everyone is equal, no people, regardless of money, power, or stature, is more important than any other in the eyes of the law. Tell this to Congress who makes laws they are exempt from. People who are sentenced to jail terms for minor infractions, while famous people are let go because of overcrowding. Companies who are "too big to fail" while people are forced out on the street because of financial insolvency.
- that everyone has the right to life, which no government can remove. Explain this to the millions of people suffering infanticide by a "woman's right to choose." Where did one's convenience allow the elimination of another's life?
- that government cannot strip us of our individual liberties. Does it say "except for..."? The rights of all must be protected, not just the rights of some. To allow one group unfettered liberty while telling another that they have to stop because they are "offending" others is not what was envisioned. Our Constitution states "Congress shall make no law respecting the establishement of religion, **or prohibiting the free exercise thereof**" We seem to be forgetting the last part, while overemphasizing the first to the extent that an individual cannot pray or invoke the name of God, YHWH, or A**h, in public.
- lastly, the American Dream guarantees us the right to a "pursuit of Happiness." It does not guarantee us success in that pursuit, only the right to engage in the quest. People seem to have confused the ability to "pursue" with the actual attainment. We are not guaranteed that everyone will own a home, rise to CEO, attain the highest office in the world; we are simply allowed to pursue those dreams, unhindered by social class, ethnicity, or sexual identity.
This is what Americans have forgotten, but why Mexicans (et al) are willing to risk anything to come to our shores. In no other country can a person born in poverty, through nothing but their own desire, skill, and willingness to risk all, elevate themselves in financial, political, or social status to the levels of those who, because of parental luck, are there through no efforts of their own.
This is the American Dream, not to succeed, but to have the right to make the attempt.
As for myself, I have achieved the American Dream. No, I am not in the 1% (heck, I'm not even in the 10%); I am not a political power; I do not rub elbows with the likes of Gore, Eastwood, or Bill Gates. But, I have a home (not necessarily a house, which is different from a home); a family; I belong to the religious entity of MY choice. On weekends I can escape the city and wander the Laurel Highlands, with no one telling me I have no right to be there. I own a car that I chose.
Yes, I have achieved the dream that brought my grandparents to these shores just a few decades ago. How have you fared?
By and large, your points are well taken. But nowhere in America do I know of a place that says you cannot pray in public, or forbid invoking the name of your favorite diety - on your OWN time and on your OWN property. On the flip side, when people are compelled to be somewhere, by law(in a courtroom, in a classroom, in a school assembly), or in order to participate in a rite or ceremony which one has earned, as in the receipt of a public school diploma, then, no, leaders cannot begin praying and invoking the name of spiritual beings to "bless" the event, because it's forcing people to be part of a religious observance. Why that is so difficult for people to comprehend is beyond me.
And separately, most people I know do not resent "the rich" as a whole. We recognize that for the most part, actors and musicians may seem "overpaid" but in the end, they make what the market will pay them for their efforts, regardless of what you or I think of the quality of their work. What we resent is a tax code that has been so warped and tweaked by the very rich that they often pay a far lower rate of taxation on income, particularly unearned income, than working people who actually DO something productive instead of just shuffling money around. We resent a tax system that enables wealth to grow in some cases NEVER being taxed, because of quirks in inheritance/estate tax law. We resent financial institutions packaging bad assets as good, profiting on the sale, and profiting again on betting that the assets will collapse - and then when all else fails, seeking bailout money from the rest of us, and then using that bailout money to pay seven-figure bonuses to the people who ran the company into the ground. THAT is why people become convinced that upward mobility is becoming a farce.
Bill Cosby has spoken forcefully about the issues which are affecting black mobility. He has been pilloried by other black "leaders", raising questions about where those other black "leaders" are trying to lead the black community.
Upward mobility and permanent victimhood are not compatible.
"The first political party that commits itself to putting upward mobility first and that credibly takes on the challenge will be ascendant."
Unfortunately, this article shows what happens when Ivy League do-gooders like Scott Winship get put in public policy positions of the national government. When I was a kid we had no refrigerator, AC, or back door, not to mention food, at various different times. Now I'm a doctor and no political party, or federal bureaucracy had a thing to do with it except for student loans.
In fact, the Democrat party did a have negative hand in my journey as their affirmative action policies no doubt had something to do with my delayed entry into medical school (in on 2nd attempt). Seems their is no hand-out program for Filipino-Scot-Irish Americans like there is for blacks, et al.
So government was to blame when you failed your med school admissions. But when you got those government-backed student loans, that was all you. Got it.
I was waiting for you Ariel....you busted me I never would have made it if it weren't for gov't loans. The free market would have never come up with that, and tuition would have increased 4.5x rate of inflation because of free market forces, not government subsidized loans.
Also nobody fails medical school exams. You get a score. Mine was 29, and avg. is 30--if your're black though you can get in with a 22-25. Gov't is to blame for the 4 black students in my class on the five-six year plan for the four year degree.
Your proposed solution with regards to pushing more students into college simply ignores the real problem here:
Maybe its the high schools!!!!
If .high school grads cannot find jobs but college grads can, maybe this has something to do with the what is going on in the public K to 12 education system???
These are 18 year olds who've had education on the public dime since they were at 4/5/6 years old! Of course we know why...its because public schools put greater focus on social engineering than actually giving kids the skills to survive and be productive in the real world. One of the main reasons that Germany has much lower unemployment is because they start vocational training in high school (or sometimes middle school).
The only thing you need to know about politicians and the American Dream is that politicians do not exist in the American Dream, and they most certainly do not matter, or make it possible. Politicians need to get over themselves and their messiah complex, stick to their elementary jobs (for starters, balance the federal budget, a fifth grader could do it) and then get out of our way.
Oh and above all, Shut. Up.
The world isn't about you, America most certainly is not about you, you don't feature in anyone's dreams in any way shape matter or form. Go. Away.
Well said. It is not at all clear that a) lack of mobility is a problem; or that b) if it is a problem, gov't can help solve it. It is one thing to remove impediments to success, quite another to attempt to determine who succeeds.
Key insight of article is some in lower rungs will make same poor choices as their parents. Evidence for staying out of poverty seems to be finish high school, get a job, get married (before having a child) in that order. All steps involving choices. Can govt policies significantly impact
those choices? For an alternative discussion, readers should see "Keeping America's Edge," in National Affairs, Winter 2010.
My history: Parents, neither of whom graduated from college, split when I was 12.
Father then absent; Attended 21 schools before graduating high school. Left home after 11th grade. Married at 20, then started college (comm.college, then st. coll., then private coll.), working full time thru graduation 5 yrs later, with 2 children and very small student loan. Worked for 1 year, returned to grad school working as research asst and teaching asst for MA. Embarked on career, continued school at nights, stopped at "all but the thesis for PhD" (Economics).
Some luck along the way? Sure. First was learning to read in 1st grade. Most important was marrying my bride of 52+years.
Poor choices sometimes? Sure. Spent a night in jail twice the summer I turned 18. But, in younger years, I always asked myself: Where will I be in 5 years with choice "A" compared with choice "B".
"....Key insight of article is some in lower rungs will make same poor choices as their parents. Evidence for staying out of poverty seems to be finish high school, get a job, get married (before having a child) in that order. All steps involving choices. Can govt policies significantly impact
those choices?..."
I disagree with the order of the choices.
You want to stay out of poverty? Finish high school. Live at home. Get a full-time job. Live at home. Take a part-time job in the evenings (or go to University at night), continue living at home. Put all your earnings in the bank while living at home. Move out ONLY when you can afford 30 to 40% down on a home of your own, and then get married ONLY to someone who doesn't owe five figures on the credit cards. Then, start having kids (and stay married.)
You will never be in poverty no matter what job you have.
The limited educational opportunities available at the primary/secondary level are making it much more difficult for children in the bottom quintiles to overcome the normal disadvantage of having less wealthy parents.
As long as the public school system exists to pacify union bosses and public employee unions instead of the students who need proper training and preparation to enter and succeed in college and have necessary job skills for the 21st century economy, the gap will widen instead of close.
"Of course, one-fifth of the population has to be in the bottom fifth, but that quintile does not have to be filled so disproportionately with the children of disadvantaged parents."
It seems to me that the bottom quintile necessarily must be dominated by the children of disadvantaged parents. That seems intuitively obvious to me. Not every disadvantage is surmountable. For example, intelligence is a highly heritable trait. Stupid people are almost never stupid by choice, but by genes, and that cannot be mitigated. There are stupid rich people and poor geniuses, but a lot more stupid poor people. This is not a tragedy. This is life and there is not much that can be done about it. One would have to work at being dense enough to be surprised by this correlation or to deny it.
Still, one has to wonder why economic mobility is even a policy goal. It is one thing to remove impediments to economic mobility, which might as a consequence increase mobility. It is quite another to seek to increase mobility. By definition, this would require one family of means to drop to a lower rank for every family that rises. Who are we to set such a process in motion?
The whole question is mooted by the facts given at the beginning of the article. People are doing better from one generation to the next, regardless of any decrease in the rate of improvement. That is all that really matters.
Ah, spoken like a true plutocrat. Why on earth should a child of privilege need to fall a quintile or two, no matter how little their merit? And good Lord, those people on the bottom must be dumb as rocks; why else would they be there? There's no helping them.
Would a government mandate that actually guaranteed equal high-quality education to all be an unacceptable policy goal or removal of an impediment? That really is the crux of the problem, and explains in large part why the welfare states do so much better than we do--argue what you will about the welfare systems, the fact is those countries also make sure everyone gets a very good education and we don't.
Don't believe it? Go to Scandinavia, sit on a park bench for a day, and talk to people (in perfect English, btw). You will find them universally well-educated, no matter what their station in life. Good luck with that same experiment here.
And yet we continue to starve education here, despite the results of that being the largest per capita prison population in the first or second world, a society edging its way towards a Somalian free-for-all, and waning competitiveness in the global economy.
Examining mobility and looking for solutions to stifled mobility isn't about seeking some abstract ideal. It's about ensuring that our system works both for deserving individuals, and for the continued national wealth and stability.
Nowhere is the modern welfare state mentioned in this article. How much of a role does government $$ support play in reducing a persons motivation to climb out of the bottom 20% ?
Well, we can estimate that, roughly, from the article. Assume the effect would be just as strong or stronger in Norway, due to the GIANT welfare state (is that fair?) then look at his numbers. Norway has ~20% remaining at the bottom, america has about ~40%. We'd expect to see more people moving up in the country that had less social spending, if the "motivational" effect you describe were dominant.
You are wrong, and people who have power who agree with your beliefs are causing innocent children to suffer. Please help us change that?
