

America is no less socially mobile than it was a generation ago - hansy
http://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21595437-america-no-less-socially-mobile-it-was-generation-ago-mobility-measured

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jandrewrogers
One thing to be aware of is that the range of incomes in many countries is
_much_ more compact than the US. If you define social mobility by the ability
to move from the bottom segment to the top, it requires a much smaller change
in income in most industrialized countries than in the US.

For example, for the average person in Denmark to go from the bottom 10% to
the top 10% of income requires earning a mere $40k more income. In the US, you
would have to earn $90k more income. Consequently, it takes considerably more
effort in the US to increase one's income in the US to the point where it
would count as "social mobility" than in many countries even though you would
be much better off in the lesser quintiles in absolute terms.

In short, there are many countries where moving from $20k to $40k is
considered "socially mobile" but also others where moving from $20k to $60k
income is not because the top bracket is $80k. Most people would probably
prefer to live in the latter country. It may be a little harder to reach the
$80k than $40k to meet the definition of "socially mobile", but in absolute
terms they are far better off with $60k of income regardless of the definition
of social mobility.

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rayiner
> In short, there are many countries where moving from $20k to $40k is
> considered "socially mobile" but also others where moving from $20k to $60k
> income is not because the top bracket is $80k. Most people would probably
> prefer to live in the latter country.

I don't think that's actually true. Having the rich be a lot richer has a lot
of sociological impacts, particularly within a democracy.

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harryh
Empirical evidence is not on your side here considering net immigration from
Mexico to the US (or many other poor country / rich country pairs).

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rayiner
There is a big difference between the medians in those two places. I'm
thinking more like the U.S. versus European countries.

~~~
harryh
Is there data on this? I'm having trouble finding it. Do we think that, say,
more people move from US -> France than the opposite every year? I'd bet money
on the reverse.

~~~
thirsteh
It sounds like you're looking to feed confirmation bias. Picking a country
that most Americans love to hate isn't really going to give you accurate
results. Try comparing the U.S. to Germany and Switzerland, or the U.S. to the
Scandinavian countries.

Also, keep in mind that statistics on emigration only show you how many people
moved between the countries. It doesn't show you whether people in Germany are
more likely to be curious about the U.S. than vice versa, or whether the
people are happier and have more freedom.

I am a European living in the U.S., and I agree the U.S. is a terrific country
to be in _if_ you are making a lot of money. But most people don't. The poor
here are far worse off (and the rich are far better off--indeed, that is the
definition of inequality.)

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harryh
I picked France at random from the set of rich Western European countries. It
was just the first one that popped into my head. /shrug/

I would predict the same outcome for England, Germany, Switzerland or Sweden.

Too your second point we were talking about where people would prefer to live
not how happy they were or how free they were. Perhaps people would prefer to
live someplace where they are less happy or free if it came with other
benefits. Who knows.

Looking at net immigration rates is, I think, the best way to determine where
people prefer to live.

~~~
thirsteh
> Looking at net immigration rates is, I think, the best way to determine
> where people prefer to live.

I don't think it is. I would prefer to live in the U.S. because my family
lives here, but it has been tremendously difficult for me to get here, and has
taken many years. Similarly, it's quite hard to just move to Germany or Sweden
if you have no connection to those countries.

~~~
harryh
Considering that it's generally harder (legally speaking) to migrate to a rich
country than to a poor country only strengthens my point.

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thirsteh
No it doesn't. And it's quite laughable that you seem to be calling Germany
and Sweden poor countries.

~~~
harryh
I wasn't calling Sweden or Germany poor. That would quite obviously be a silly
thing to say.

The US, Sweden & Germany are all pretty rich and they all fairly restrictive
in terms of how difficult it is to legally migrate to them. I thought that was
what you means when you said "it has been tremendously difficult for me to get
here" and "it's quite hard to just move to Germany or Sweden if you have no
connection to those countries."

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scarmig
Big takeaway: the USA is about as socially mobile as it was a generation ago.
But that's only because the USA has never been as socially mobile as it
imagines itself: some or most European countries have exceeded it in mobility
for a long period of time.

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lostcolony
"Most likely...The correlation between vast wealth accruing to a tiny elite
and the ability of people to move between the rest of the rungs of the income
ladder may be small—at least for now."

And there's the crux of the matter. Even if that correlation remains small,
the top rung of that ladder is so far out of reach of everyone else, -and-
incorporates an insanely disproportionate amount of money, power, and
influence, that it will likely remain forever out of reach, while allowing for
policies that markedly worsen the lives of those on lower rungs.

~~~
kudos200
What proportion of the richest 1% (or 0.1%, or the top 1000 richest people) do
you think came from families that were already in the top 1%?

How do you define "out of reach"?

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kudos200
Well, I got curious and found an answer:

"In 1982, 60 percent of the people on the Forbes 400 list of wealthiest
Americans came from wealthy families, compared with 32 percent in 2011."

[http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/joshua-rauh-
what-f...](http://www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/joshua-rauh-what-
forbes-400-list-says-about-american-wealth)

~~~
lostcolony
Which speaks nothing of policy changes today, and what effect it will have on
the future. Nor what disruption will come about to ensure that that trend
continues (we are given no data points in that post other than those two, and
we had both the PC revolution and the internet in between 1982 and 2011 to
massively shake up entire industries).

More to the point, it speaks nothing on how conditions for those not among the
elite have changed in that time, and how they will change over time.

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djillionsmix
"A generation ago" was gen x, which isn't the group that anyone thought was
economically mobile.

If they're not going to include the boomers this is sort of a stupid waste of
time.

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spikels
Paper this article is based on:

[http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/mobility_trends.pdf](http://obs.rc.fas.harvard.edu/chetty/mobility_trends.pdf)

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secretasiandan
From the paper: For example, if one defines mobility based on relative
positions in the income distribution – e.g., a child’s prospects of rising
from the bottom to the top quintile – then intergenerational mobility has
remained unchanged in recent decades. If instead one defines mobility based on
the probability that a child from a low-income family (e.g., the bottom 20%)
reaches a fixed upper income threshold (e.g., $100,000), then mobility has
increased because of the increase in inequality. However, the increase in
inequality has also magnified the difference in expected incomes between
children born to low (e.g., bottom-quintile) vs. high (top-quintile) income
families. In this sense, mobility has fallen because a child’s income depends
more heavily on her parents’ position in the income distribution today than in
the past.

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daniel-cussen
If you've read past your limit and want to read this article anyway, delete
your cookies.

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w1ntermute
Or open it in porn mode.

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known
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_principle)

