Socioeconomic mobility in the United States refers to the upward or downward movement of Americans from one social class or economic level to another,Random House Unabridged Dictionary second edition. through job changes, inheritance, marriage, connections, tax changes, innovation, illegal activities, hard work, lobbying, luck, health changes or other factors.
This mobility can be the change in socioeconomic status between parents and children ("inter-generational"); or over the course of a person's lifetime ("intra-generational"). Socioeconomic mobility typically refers to "relative mobility", the chance that an individual American's income or social status will rise or fall in comparison to other Americans, but can also refer to "absolute" mobility, based on changes in living standards in America.
Several studies have found that inter-generational mobility is lower in the US than in some European countries, in particular the Nordic countries.Harder for Americans to Rise From Lower Rungs | By JASON DePARLE | January 4, 2012] The US ranked 27th in the world in the 2020 Global Social Mobility Index.
Social mobility in the US has either remained unchanged or decreased since the 1970s. Pdf. Pdf.
A 2008 study showed that economic mobility in the U.S. increased from 1950 to 1980, but has declined sharply since 1980.Pdf. A 2012 study conducted by the Pew Charitable Trusts found that the bottom quintile is 57% likely to experience upward mobility and only 7% to experience downward mobility.Urahn, Susan K., et al. (July 2012) Pursuing the American Dream: Economic Mobility Across Generations Pew Charitable Trusts A 2013 Brookings Institution study found income inequality was increasing and becoming more permanent, sharply reducing social mobility. A large academic study released in 2014 found US mobility overall has not changed appreciably in the last 25 years (for children born between 1971 and 1996), but a variety of up and down mobility changes were found in several different parts of the country. On average, American children entering the labor market today have the same chances of moving up in the income distribution (relative to their parents) as children born in the 1970s.
Popular perception Many Americans strongly believe the U.S. is a "Land of Opportunity" that offers every child an equal chance at social mobility and economic mobility. The idea of Americans rising from humble origins to riches has been called a "civil religion", "the bedrock upon which the American story has been anchored",Economic Mobility: Is the American Dream Alive and Well? Economic Mobility Project| May 2007 and part of the American identity (the American Dream.English grammar 4U online|
"In general, the American Dream can be defined as being the opportunity and freedom for all citizens to achieve their goals and become rich and famous if only they work hard enough.") This theme is celebrated in the lives of famous Americans such as Benjamin Franklin and Henry Ford, and in popular culture (from the books of Horatio Alger and Norman Vincent Peale to the song "Movin' on Up"the theme song of the 1975–85 TV sitcom The Jeffersons).
In the US only 32% of respondents agreed with the statement that forces beyond their personal control determine their success. In contrast, a majority of European respondents agreed with this view in every country but three (Britain, the Czech Republic and Slovakia).Ever higher society, ever harder to ascend Whatever happened to the belief that any American could get to the top? economist.com December 29, 2004 The Brookings Institution found Americans surveyed had the highest belief in meritocracy—69% agreed with the statement "people are rewarded for intelligence and skill"—among 27 nations surveyed.Economic Mobility: Is the American Dream Alive and Well? Economic Mobility Project| May 2007 In a survey from the Cato Institute, these findings were consistent across income levels, but not political ideology, with strong liberals more likely to attribute success to luck or family.
Another report found such beliefs to have gotten stronger over the last few decades. The Journal of Experimental Social Psychology posits that part of the reason for American's strong belief in economic mobility is due to a strong underestimation about current economic inequality. High levels of perceived economic equality lead to attributing wealth to more internal factors like work ethic, thus leading to a higher belief in economic mobility.
Measurements of American perception of economic mobility have not been consistent. Two research articles from the Association for Psychological Science were released January and February of 2015, both surveying respondent estimation of American economic mobility. Both papers came to opposite conclusions - one stating that Americans tend to underestimate upward mobility, cited in Swan (2023), p. 507 and the other stating that Americans overstate upward mobility. cited in Swan (2023), p. 507 A study published by Cambridge University found that the wording in each study's questionnaire was strongly determinative of the results, biasing them depending on which questions were given. Researchers concluded that due to the limited prior knowledge or attitudes typical respondents had on the subject, especially with the formatting of "quintiles", responses were far more vulnerable to be changed by the wording of the questions.
Intergenerational mobility
Current state
The correlation between parents' income and their children's income in the United States is estimated between .4 and .6.
If a parent's income had no effect on a child's opportunity for future upward mobility, and was not correlated with other factors impacting it, approximately 20% of poor children who started in the bottom quintile (in the bottom 20% of the US range of incomes) would remain there as poor adults. At the other end of income spectrum, if children were born into wealthy families in the top 20%, only 20% would stay in that top income category if their mobility opportunities were equal to every other child's in the country.
But long-term income statistics show this isn't happening. Mobility opportunities are different for poor and wealthy children in the US. Parental incomes and parental choices of home locations while raising children appear to be major factors in that difference. According to a 2012 Pew Economic Mobility Project study 43% of children born into the bottom quintile (bottom 20%) remain in that bottom quintile as adults. Similarly, 40% of children raised in the top quintile (top 20%) will remain there as adults. Looking at larger moves, only 4% of those raised in the bottom quintile moved up to the top quintile as adults. Around twice as many (8%) of children born into the top quintile fell to the bottom. 37% of children born into the top quintile will fall below the middle. These findings have led researchers to conclude that "opportunity structures create and determine future generations' chances for success. Hence, our lot in life is at least partially determined by where we grow up, and this is partially determined by where our parents grew up, and so on."
Economic mobility may be affected by factors such as geographic location, education, genetics, culture, race, sex, and interactions among these, as well as family wealth.
Economic mobility has fallen between 1850 and 2019, where a fathers' economic rank more weakly predicts a child's rank after World War II than during the 19th and early 20th Centuries. Intergenerational mobility was low in part due to limited upward mobility for poorer individuals who lived in the South or were Black.
Famous historical cases Famous instances of great economic and social mobility include Benjamin Franklin and Henry Ford. Additional popular examples of upward social mobility between generations in America include Abraham Lincoln and Bill Clinton, who were born into working-class families yet achieved high political office in adult life. Andrew Carnegie arrived in the U.S. as a poor immigrant and rose to become a steel tycoon, perhaps the wealthiest man in America, and its leading philanthropist.
Comparisons with other countries
Several large studies of mobility in developed countries in recent years have found the US among the lowest in mobility. One study (“Do Poor Children Become Poor Adults?")Economic Mobility ProjectCorak, Miles. 2006. "Do Poor Children Become Poor Adults? Lessons from a Cross Country Comparison of Generational Earnings Mobility." Research on Economic Inequality, 13 no. 1:143–88. 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. (see graph) Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz contends that "Scandinavian countries changed their education systems, social policies and legal frameworks to create societies where there is a higher degree of mobility. That made their countries more into the land of opportunity that America once was."'Scandinavian Dream' is true fix for America's income inequality. CNN Money, June 3, 2015. Retrieved June 6, 2015.
According to journalist Jason DeParle, "At least five large studies in recent years have found the United States to be less mobile than comparable nations. A project led by Markus Jantti, an economist at a Swedish university, found that 42 percent of American men raised in the bottom fifth of incomes stay there as adults. That shows a level of persistent disadvantage much higher than in Denmark (25 percent) and Britain (30 percent)—a country famous for its class constraints.American Exceptionalism in a New Light: A Comparison of Intergenerational Earnings Mobility in the Nordic Countries, the United Kingdom and the United States Markus Jäntti et al.| January 2006 Meanwhile, just 8 percent of American men at the bottom rose to the top fifth. That compares with 12 percent of the British and 14 percent of the Danes. Despite frequent references to the United States as a classless society, about 62 percent of Americans (male and female) raised in the top fifth of incomes stay in the top two-fifths, according to research by the Economic Mobility Project of the Pew Charitable Trusts. Similarly, 65 percent born in the bottom fifth stay in the bottom two-fifths.Economic mobilities of Families Across Generations Brookings Institution
In 2012, a graph plotting the relationship between income inequality and intergenerational social mobility in the United States and twelve other developed countries—dubbed "The Great Gatsby Curve"Income Inequality From Generation To Generation Robert Lenzner| forbes.com| March 26, 2012—showed "a clear negative relationship" between inequality and social mobility.Krugman, Paul (January 15, 2012) "The Great Gatsby Curve" The New York TimesBerman, Yonatan (August 11, 2016) "The Great Gatsby Curve Revisited - Understanding the Relationship Between Inequality and Intergenerational Mobility" SSRN.com Countries with low levels of inequality such as Denmark, Norway and Finland had some of the greatest mobility, while the two countries with the high level of inequality—Chile and Brazil—had some of the lowest mobility. The curve was introduced in a speech by chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers Alan Krueger, and the President's Economic Report to Congress.Economic Report of the President. Transmitted to Congress