Krugman: "Hard to Escape the Bottom Decile, But Turns Out Also Much Easier to Stay in Top Decile"
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/23/we-were-middle-class-once-and-young
June 23, 2013, 12:34 amComment
We Were Middle-Class Once, And Young
As I noted the other day, Greg Mankiw (pdf), in his defense of the one percent, seems oddly oblivious, among other things, to the extent to which America has changed since he was young. We are a much more unequal society now, and as a consequence arguably one with a lot less intergenerational mobility too.
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Not only do the affluent spend much more on their children, but the gap has grown a lot since Greg and I were young. Maybe all that spending is wasted but I doubt it. We have become both a more unequal society and a society with more unequal opportunities.
Theres a lot more in the Corak paper, by the way. I was especially struck by the comparison of mobility in the US and Canada. I wasnt surprised that America has less mobility, and certainly not that in America its hard to escape the bottom decile. But it turns out that in America its also much easier to stay in the top decile hardly the image of a meritocractic society, unless you believe that Americas top decile is genetically superior to Canadas.
Anyway, we are not the society we once were and baby boomers should realize that.