We could use a study on downward mobility, too. It's also clear that we have a fairly well-defined class system in America now, with different probable outcomes, depending on which class you start out in.

In the wealthy class, there is far less downward mobility than elsewhere. Their children have large cushions (assets) and support to stay in that class.

In the poorest class, a college education is available to only a fraction, and probably only those with the most demonstrated ability, and a good part of that group is eligible for significant economic aid. That's probably the faction that coincides best with the statistic of college educations conveying upward mobility.

The middle class probably has more downward mobility these days than upward mobility. The middle class lifestyle had always presumed an improving middle class, so was free to use all their discretionary income for lifestyle improvements. As a result, many never saved enough for their own retirement, let alone funding their kids. The housing collapse wiped out much of their net worth, too, which most haven't recovered yet.

A tale of three cities?

Straw person time?

I wonder if it could be so that "Forty percent of Americans think it’s fairly common for someone to start off poor, work hard and eventually RISE TO THE TOP of the economic heap."

"...RISE TO THE TOP..."? Does anyone believe that? Just doesn't sound right.

It's more likely that "Forty percent of Americans think it’s fairly common for someone to start off poor, work hard and eventually IMPROVE THEIR ECONOMIC SITUATION."

@2 - 'rags to riches" here means started in the household bottom income quintile and made it to the top quintile. In today's dollars, bottom quintile tops out at 28k and top quintile starts at 120k. Perhaps 4% in this context doesn't seem quite as large since it doesn't involve wealth per se.

Btw, since The Stranger has been in the forefront of the $15/hr minimum wage, what does The Stranger pay now? Does it pay $15/hr for all? Or if not is The Stranger willing and able to do so? If not, why not? Does The Stranger outsource work to subcontractors who pay less that $15/hr?

(Or do you factor in benefits? No idea how that works in min hr wage laws.)

Rightfully, The Stranger makes such a big deal about the issue, so it would be helpful in understanding the issue to know what The Stranger, as a business, is willing and able to pay.

I have been impressed by Tom Douglas statement that his restaurants adhere to the $15/hr min wage for all employees. Maybe The Stranger has already done something similar which would be great!

"Despite the debate over the value of a college education, a college degree remains the single biggest predictor that a person will move up the ladder."

Note, however, that "predicts" is not the same as "causes". Prediction is necessary, but not sufficient, for causality.

Is it 4% of folks in the bottom quintile, or 4% of all americans? The latter seems to be what the article says. In which case that's over 12 million people. It's a big difference.

People: Read the report. It's 8 pages. It says explicitly, that the 4% number is about Americans who *start at the bottom quintile*, not all Americans.

This is why so many low-income Americans vote against their own economic interests, most notably for politicians who promise tax cuts that benefit the wealthy—because prosperity is "just around the corner" FOR THEM, and when they get there they don't want to pay a tax rate that they are not even within shouting distance of right now.

The "debate about the value of a college education" really doesn't exist except among a certain class of pundit whose mission is to run interference for state legislatures across the country abandoning public higher education, again for tax cuts. That said, we need more and better not-for-profit trade schools and apprenticeship programs for those who aren't interested in, or suited for, college.

With regard to grade schools, Ken @9 and I agree on the ends, though probably not on the means.

OK, forget about the wages of the whole STRANGER staff: what is the lowest paid employee? (By job description.)

I was reading (maybe it was here, I can't remember) that since Obama of the four quintiles the only one that has stagnated is the 4th..the upper middle class.

The high end weathly have seen (yet more) asset inflation. The poor and middle are getting more assistance, and low inflation and mostly, depressed real estate prices. But the people who are trying to move beyond the salary class into the wealth class are being held back.

That's the way the Democrat Party works. It needs to keep up and comers in the pit, by throwing bread and circuses to the hoi polloi.

Instead of quibbling and speculating about stuff you don't understand, why not actually read the article? And also be sure to read this article, which explains how social mobility in the USA is much lower than it is in most other developed countries. For instance, in America 42% of men raised in the bottom fifth stay there as adults; in Denmark it is 25%, and even in famously class-ridden UK it's 30%. 65% of American men raised in the bottom fifth stay in the bottom two fifths, while 62% of men raised in the top fifth stay in the top two fifths.

You can deny the truth of American class rigidity all you want, but you're wrong. Horatio Alger is dead. And if you didn't already know this, you haven't been paying attention -- it's been in the news for years.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/05/us/har…

Describing the lack of American class mobility as a myth implies that it has always been so. That is not true. This kind of cynical fatalism lessens the sting of of an even more disturbing reality. We had it, and we lost it.

There WAS greater class mobility from the 1940's through the late sixties (and I suppose post civl war) and those opportunities were deliberately stolen from the lower classes by the rich elite.

Most of us don't have to go too far back the family tree to where there was first person to graduate college and a first person to graduate high school. That is class mobility at work. So it was there.

Anecdotally two generations back my mothers family was rendered destitute by the great depression. It's not an exaggeration to say they lost everything. My grandmothers siblings died of malnutrition. My mother ate corn cob and newspaper soup. They managed to hitch a ride out west and ended up settling where the car broke down in Idaho. But thanks to the Depression Era assistance my mothers father started a barbershop and saw three children be the first in his family to get high school educations and sent three children to college on a barbers salary.

My fathers family had dairy farms and likewise lost most of everything during the depression. But because of that dirty liberal farm assistance during the war built back the farm.

My father, thanks to the GI bill, was the first in his family to attended college. As an officer in the US Army he made enough money to help send three children to college and buy two homes. Yes. Class mobility WAS possible.

There little chance lower class Americans can accomplish those things now. The odds are too stacked against you. And half of society despises you for being poor like you have a disease.

There are many more 2-income households today than in 1968, so it is not clear what these numbers mean or whether apples are actually compared to apples. Also, these same studies usually claim that absolute mobility (children earning more than their parents) is great but as E Warren showed in the Two-Income Trap families earning more today is not a guaranty of doing better than one's parents. This is likely reflected in the observation that there is much less mobility in terms of wealth than in terms of income, i.e. the inability to save money reflects on the actual value of income.

@19 Well said.

The upward mobility myth lived on, despite the erosion that started with Ronald Reagan and his war on both the unions, corporate regulation, and government programs (not only social services, but things that directly employed people). (Oh, and the minimum wage. That's when it became unlinked from inflation.) Some of the erosion has been so gradual that white middle class people didn't even seem to notice it until we elected a (half-)black President, and were then rabble-roused (by the GOP, the Kochs, Roger Ailes and others) to blame him. Meanwhile, those same rabble-rousers are the ones who actually changed things to where folks in, certainly the lower two-thirds of, the middle class are now hurting.

This, by the way, is how you end up with enough of a population that would support a fascist overthrow of a stable democracy. While I certainly hope that doesn't happen, I can't help but wonder if certain aforesaid parties (Ailes, the Kochs, and elements of the GOP) aren't ready and willing to facilitate it.

@22, 23:
thm > m̄
∴ thm > hm
Argumentum non sequitur. Tu stultus es.