The Economic Mobility Project is a unique nonpartisan collaboration of The Pew Charitable Trusts and respected thinkers from four leading policy institutes — The American Enterprise Institute, The Brookings Institution, The Heritage Foundation and The Urban Institute. While as individuals they may not necessarily agree on the solutions or policy prescriptions for action, each believes that economic mobility plays a central role in defining the American experience and that more attention must be paid to understanding the status and health of the American Dream.

With the convergence of a presidential election cycle, income inequality last seen nearly a century ago, and new data on the state of mobility in America, the present moment provides a unique opportunity to refocus attention and debate on the question of economic mobility.

Our purpose is to provoke a more rigorous discussion about economic mobility in America by presenting new findings and research, and analyzing the effects of social, economic and human capital factors that may impact one’s ability to move up the economic ladder over a generation.