Why Mobility in America Is in the Dumpster

[xchrom]

http://www.alternet.org/story/155505/why_mobility_in_america_is_in_the_dumpster_/

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We’re a species that has gotten around; we’ve wandered, pioneered and migrated to every corner of the world. The spear tip of technology is how we can get somewhere else: the wheel, the sailboat, the rocket. In short: we’re movers.

We are now as mobile as we’ve ever been as a culture. Our phones are not tethered to any particular location. Our keepsakes, like photos and letters, are all saved on devices smaller than your average drugstore paperback. The bitter visual of a breakup – the splitting up of a couple’s CD collection – no longer exists since you both have copies of the same MP3s. Your computer fits comfortably in your lap – everything else is in your pocket. We now have the ability to go anywhere and bring with us more things utilizing less space than at any other time in human history.

We have the ability – the freedom – to roam more now than ever before. And yet our upward mobility is standing still.

Jason DeParle in The New York Times wrote in January this year, “Countries with less equality generally have less mobility.” And as Occupy Wall Street successfully pointed out the top one percent “earn” nearly a quarter of the nation’s income. While they have enjoyed an increase in wealth and a decrease in taxes, the rest of the country has seen a flattening of their prospects. The U.S. ranks near the bottom in income inequality and therefore upward mobility.

Time noted, “The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Economic Mobility Project has found that if you were born in 1970 in the bottom one-fifth of the socioeconomic spectrum in the U.S., you had only about a 17 percent chance of making it into the upper two-fifths.”

[marmar]

1. k/r

[pampango]

2. Worst - US & UK; Best - Canada, Finland, Norway and Denmark; link to taxes, unions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-economic_mobility_in_the_United_States#Comparisons_with_other_countries

Several large studies of mobility in developed countries in recent years have found that One study (“Do Poor Children Become Poor Adults?&quot found that of nine developed countries, the United States and United Kingdom had the lowest intergenerational vertical social mobility with about half of the advantages of having a parent with a high income passed on to the next generation. The four countries with the lowest "intergenerational income elasticity", i.e. the highest social mobility, were Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Canada with less than 20% of advantages of having a high income parent passed on to their children.



It's not surprising that the US' tax system is the most regressive in the developed world. What is surprising is that an economic powerhouse like Germany has the most progressive tax structure in the developed world (at least among those countries shown. I suspect that the Scandanavian countries have even more progressive tax structures.)



Tax rates have fallen dramatically for the top 1% - particularly for the top .1% - (aside from an uptick in the 1990's) since the mid-1970's.

The experience of Germany shows that a progressive tax structure that contributes to a very equitable distribution of income and enhanced social mobility is not inconsistent with a strong economy, strong unions and a strong middle class. Conversely our experience shows that a regressive tax structure that contributes to a very inequitable distribution of income and a lack of mobility is inconsistent with a strong economy, strong unions and a strong middle class.

[xchrom]

3. Makes you think the democratic party would latch onto

This info like a Pit Bull with a good bone.
Waving it in everybodies face who came near.

[Bigmack]

4. I have sent those same graphs...

.. to people who were raving to me about how this country offers everybody a chance to succeed.

Didn't change a thing.

They paid no attention to the facts.

Is it that people can't read graphs?

Are they so blind....?

Never mind.

If people can't learn, if people can't change their minds in light of the facts, we are screwed.

[pampango]

5. I think it is sometimes hard to accept that the beliefs you grew up with are no longer true.

That's why many choose not to accept facts, graphs or any other type of evidence.

If too many fall into that category ("if people can't change their minds in light of the facts&quot , not only are "we screwed", but democracy is screwed.