Comment by micromacrofoot
2 years ago
That data is paywalled, but I've got some conflicting sources:
> Rates of relative intergenerational mobility in the U.S. appear to have been flat for decades
> Most Americans born in 1940 ended up better off, in real terms, than their parents at the same age. Only half of those of those born in 1980 have surpassed their parent’s family income
https://www.brookings.edu/articles/raj-chetty-in-14-charts-b...
Also worth mentioning that the mean income for the second quintile is only ~$40k — it's still ~$30k off from the middle quintile... so we're not talking anything close to the american dream here either way. We're talking multiple generations at best for a small percentage of the lower quintile to reach the middle.
>Only half of those of those born in 1980 have surpassed their parent’s family income
If you are talking about relative economic mobility, more than half of people cant end up in the top half by definition. Only 50 percent of people can improve in social class- and 50% of people have to go down in social class to make that happen. Of course I understand that the case is different if you are talking about nominal income. The biggest Issues there is that it is calculated using household income, and the number of adults/household has gone down quite a bit in the US. The last Issue I would point out is that these metrics rarely include transfer payments, which for the lowest quintile have gone up quite a bit.