[jeffkrol]

After hearing a "rumor" we now ranked 10th. in that area (behind France )
I had to dig into it a bit...
for what it's worth:
Income Mobility
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Urban Plight: Vanishing Upward Mobility — The American, A Magazine of Ideas......

Conclusions
We began with the observation that the United States. has one of the lowest rates of intergenerational
mobility among high-income nations, such that the chances of ending up rich if you were born
to a low-income family are on the order of just one percent. We noted, however, that this does
not necessarily prove that economic opportunities are unequally distributed – it depends on the
mechanisms by which economic status is transmitted from parent to child. When we explored these
mechanisms we found that education loomed largest, meaning that increasing the access of lowand
middle-income children to high-quality education, particularly college education, would have
a significant effect on overall economic mobility. We also found that race matters, and it matters
even after we control for a host of parental background factors, as well as for education and health,
welfare receipt and female headship. We argued that this reflects inequality of opportunity by race.
The findings regarding the importance of health are also troubling, but we noted that the precise
mechanisms are not clear.

Also noteworthy is the fact that the odds of getting rich are not just long for children of lowincome
families, but also middle-class families. In particular, the odds of getting rich remain under
2 percent up through the third quintile of parental income, i.e., for the bottom 60 percent of the
income distribution. However, access to the ranks of the rich by the children of the middle class
improves somewhat when income is measured on a per-person basis, taking account of changing
household sizes (lower panel of Table 3). Now the children of the third parental quintile have about
a 4.5 percent chance of attaining the top 5 percent. But the chances of being rich if you were born
rich remain about 18 times higher than if you were born to the lowest income bracket (16.3 percent
versus 0.9 percent). In general, the results are qualitatively similar as when income is not adjusted
for household size, with considerable “stickiness” at both ends of the income distribution.

It thus seems fair to
conclude that working overtime generally does lead to upward short-term mobility, but not in all
economies at all times. In 2003-04, the time-honored method of laboring one’s way from rags to
riches did not seem to work as well

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_mobility

Considering that inflation rates have not kept up with increasing tuition rates, disadvantaged families have a much harder time affording college. Especially considering the increased competition for college admittances at public schools, students from lower economic quintiles are at an even greater disadvantage.[10] Tuition rates over the past ten years has risen 47% at public universities and 42% at private universities.[12] While having to take out more loans and work jobs while taking classes, students from lower income quintiles are considering college to be “a test of their endurance rather than their intelligence” [12].

By obtaining an education, individuals with low economic status can increase the income potential and therefore earn more than their parents and possibly surpass those in the upper income quintiles. Overall, each additional level of education an individual achieves whether it be a high school, college, graduate, or professional degree can add greatly to income levels.[11] On the other hand, there are reports that disagree with the idea that individuals can work hard, obtain an education and succeed because there is the notion that America is actually getting poorer and actually more likely to stay poor as compared to any other western country. The idea of the “American Dream” is starting to fade since the middle class family income has remained constant since 1973. Studies have found that economic mobility is 3 times stronger in Denmark, 2.5 times higher in Canada, and 1.5 times higher in Germany as compared to the United States.

I remember when tuition was $300/semester.....

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Last edited by jeffkrol; 10-05-2010 at 08:18 PM.

[cardinal43]

I remember when tuition was $300/semester.....

Me too, except mine was per quarter, and books were included.

[JavaJoe]

'They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English.

I can't even talk the way these people talk:

Why you ain't,
Where you is,
What he drive,
Where he stay,
Where he work,
Who you be...

And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk.

And then I heard the father talk.

Everybody knows it's important to speak English except these knuckleheads. You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap coming out of your mouth
In fact you will never get any kind of job making a decent living.

People marched and were hit in the face with rocks to get an Education, and now we've got these knuckleheads walking around.

The lower economic people are not holding up their end in this deal.

These people are not parenting. They are buying things for kids.

$500 sneakers for what?

And they won't spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics.

I am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit.

Where were you when he was 2?

Where were you when he was 12?

Where were you when he was 18 and how come you didn't know that he had a pistol?

And where is the father? Or who is his father?

People putting their clothes on backward:
Isn't that a sign of something gone wrong?

People with their hats on backward, pants down around the crack, isn't that a sign of something?

Isn't it a sign of something when she has her dress all the way up and got all type of needles [piercing] going through her body?

What part of Africa did this come from??

We are not Africans. Those people are not Africans; they don't know a thing about Africa .....

I say this all of the time. It would be like white people saying they are European-American. That is totally stupid.

I was born here, and so were my parents and grand parents and, very likely my great grandparents. I don't have any connection to Africa, no more than white Americans have to Germany , Scotland , England , Ireland , or the Netherlands . The same applies to 99 percent of all the black Americans as regards to Africa . So stop, already! ! !

With names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed and all of that crap ......... And all of them are in jail.

Brown or black versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem.

We have got to take the neighborhood back.

People used to be ashamed. Today a woman has eight children with eight different 'husbands' -- or men or whatever you call them now.

We have millionaire football players who cannot read.

We have million-dollar basketball players who can't write two paragraphs. We, as black folks have to do a better job.

Someone working at Wal-Mart with seven kids, you are hurting us.

We have to start holding each other to a higher standard..

We cannot blame the white people any longer.'
Dr.. William Henry 'Bill' Cosby, Jr., Ed..D.

[Nesster]

Here is one difference between Europe and the USA: in the USA we tend to believe, averages and statistics are interesting, but personally, we're exceptions. I think overall in Europe, after a thousand or so years of 'civilization' people tend to be more realistic about their individual status and possibility. This is sort of the personal side of the statist coin.

Thus European countries are more likely to support policies based on actual fact - and actual social concerns - than in the individualistic USA. In the USA you best be smiling when you're telling me I'm average, and that the average is below par globally at that, lest there be a shootin' match.

Why indeed should we tax hedge fund managers by the same rules as you and I get taxed? Because some day I might be a hedge fund manager also, and if you tax them now I'll never get as rich as they are. Or something like that.

17 of 100,000 of our mothers die in child birth? No big, it's just a blip, and anyway, that's not my wife/daughter/sister, and anyway my wife is past childbearing, and I don't have a sister or daughter. [untrue, but for the sake of this argument...]

The other aspect, vis a vis Europe, is the idea that in the USA the bottom rungs are continually and traditionally refreshed by new immigrants. Immigration, in aggregate, pushes up the previously low groups. But immigration first threatens the groups who are there. Thus you get the anti-Irish, anti-Italian, anti-whoever's coming in now reactions.