Economic Mobility Project In The News
- New York Times - Higher Education Gap May Slow Economic Mobility Economic mobility, the chance that children of the poor or middle class will climb up the income ladder, has not changed significantly over the last three decades, a study being released on Wednesday says. The authors of the study, by scholars at the Brookings Institution in Washington and sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts, warned that widening gaps in higher education between rich and poor, whites and minorities, could soon lead to a downturn in opportunities for the poorest families. READ MORE »
- Chicago Tribune - Housing mess threatens to widen income gap For most Americans, owning a home has been their winning bet on the American dream. It has been their major source for borrowing, for building savings, and for retirement. And at least 40 percent of the nation's poor own their own homes. But shrinking home values, and tightening credit, which makes it more difficult for people to buy or hold on to homes, threaten to hasten the growing income equality in the U.S., warns a study of Americans' economic mobility slated for release Wednesday.READ MORE »
- Tattered Dream, Who'll Tackle the Issue Of Upward Mobility? We're not who we think we are. The American self-image is suffused with the golden glow of opportunity. We think of the United States as a land of unlimited possibility, not so much a classless society but as a place where class is mutable -- a place where brains, energy and ambition are what counts, not the circumstances of one's birth. But three new studies suggest that Horatio Alger doesn't live here anymore. READ MORE »
- The Economist - The Greasy Ladder Some black Americans are doing very well. Barack Obama is pulling ahead of Hillary Clinton in Iowa. Tiger Woods is the world's best-paid athlete. Stan O'Neal was given a $160m golden parachute as he was ejected from Merrill Lynch last month. But these exceptional folk are indeed exceptional. For members of the black middle class, the news is gloomier. New research suggests that their grip on affluence is precarious. READ MORE »
- C-SPAN - Washington Journal Managing Director John E. Morton answered viewer questions for an hour on Thanksgiving Day. To view, please click on the 11/22/07 link on CSPAN.org site (link below); the section on economic mobility begins 1:34 into the clip.READ MORE »
- Washington Post - The GOP's Pocketbook Issue Republicans have spent years wondering when Americans will finally wake up and realize they are actually happy about the state of the economy. A slowdown may now be in the offing, but that does not explain why the credit has never rolled in for six years of uninterrupted economic growth or the creation of more than 8 million jobs since August 2003. Has an exhausting war overwhelmed the upbeat economic news? Has the public just been in a sour mood this decade? READ MORE »
- Marketplace Morning Report - Rags to Riches Still a Fairy Tale A report out says most people are making more money than their parents did. But it also says despite making more money, a lot of them still go from being poor children to poor adults. Nancy Marshall Genzer has more.READ MORE »
- Christian Science Monitor - American dream falters Lionel Santibañez is better off because his parents came to America. His father was illiterate and his mother spoke little English when they arrived in Texas from Mexico in 1980. But they sacrificed, saved, and pushed their kids into good schools – and today Mr. Santibañez is a college graduate who works at the M.D. Anderson Cancer Center in Houston as a scientific editor.READ MORE »
- Washington Post - Middle-Class Dream Eludes African American Families Nearly half of African Americans born to middle-income parents in the late 1960s plunged into poverty or near-poverty as adults, according to a new study -- a perplexing finding that analysts say highlights the fragile nature of middle-class life for many African Americans. READ MORE »
- Wall Street Journal - Blacks Trail in Growth of Income Blacks born into the middle class in the late 1960s are far more likely than whites to earn less than their parents, a new study of economic mobility has found. The study examined how children born in the late 1960s fared in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Overall, it found that two-thirds of the adult children earned more, adjusted for inflation, than their parents did at the same age in the late 1960s.READ MORE »
- The Border Line Blog - Immigrants and Money The economic progress of immigrants in the United States is slowing, in a trend that does not bode well for future generations, a new study says. The trend is partly due to a larger influx of immigrants with lower levels of education who earn lower wages, said the study released Wednesday by the Economic Mobility Project, an initiative of the non-partisan Pew Charitable Trusts READ MORE »
- Wall Street Journal Blog - Immigrants and Their Kids Are Losing Ground Economically Immigrants and their children are losing ground economically to native-born workers, contributing to increasing income inequality in the U.S., a study backed by liberal and conservative think tanks found.READ MORE »
- ABCnews.com - Wages Through the Ages: Men Earn Less Than Fathers at Same Age A new report finds that men in their 30s make less money than their fathers did at the same age, raising questions about deeply held notions of social mobility and the realities of the American Dream. It's not just because they're typical Generation X slackers either. READ MORE »
- MSNBC.com - Every generation does better? Don't count on it The American dream has always held that each generation will enjoy a higher standard of living than the previous one, and that is still true, as measured by household income. But the generational gains are slowing, and the increased participation of women in the work force is the only thing keeping the dream alive, according to an analysis of Census data released Friday.READ MORE »
- Marketplace Morning Report - Not your father's American Dream A new study reveals that while American men are working harder than the generation before them, they are earning less. Families are keeping pace because two-income households are now the norm. Audio interview of John E. Morton by Jeremy Hobson. READ MORE »
- NPR Day to Day - Study: Men in Their 30s Make Less Than Their Dads Young men in their 30s in the United States are not doing as well financially as their fathers' generation did. A study released today on economic mobility shows that, on average, 30-something males make about 12 percent less than they would have 30 years ago. The report appears to challenge the conventional wisdom that each generation will do better than the one before. An audio interview with John E. Morton.READ MORE »
- Wall Street Journal - Not Your Father's Pay: Why Wages Today Are Weaker American men in their 30s today are worse off than their fathers' generation, a reversal from just a decade ago, when sons generally were better off than their fathers, a new study finds. The study, the first in a series on economic mobility undertaken by several prominent think tanks, also says the typical American family's income has lagged far behind productivity growth since 2000, a departure from most of the post-World War II period.READ MORE »
- Financial Times - Has the American Dream become almost impossible? Sir, I applaud your editorial "Learning to swim in the modern economy. Not everyone is getting richer. That poses risks for us all" (March 24) for not only addressing income inequality but also calling for political debate to focus more on economic mobility and opportunity. READ MORE »
- Wall Street Journal - Pew Trust to Fund Bipartisan Study of US Mobility The Pew Charitable Trusts is expected to announce today that it is giving $2.2 million over two years to four local think tanks -- two liberal, two conservative -- in an unusual effort to forge a consensus across the political spectrum about the extent to which Americans can move up the economic ladder in their lifetimes and from one generation to the next.READ MORE »
- Editorial: Poor Kids Can Move to Higher Income Brackets - with a College Degree A new report by the Brookings Institution is a clarion call for massive, effective reform of public education so it can do a better job of closing the income gap. "Getting Ahead or Losing Ground: Mobility in America" points out that the ticket out of poverty isn't singing, rapping or tossing a football. It's a college degree. READ MORE »