According to the most recent study on economic opportunity from the Brookings Institution, other advanced economies now offer more opportunity than the U.S. does. In the U.K. and Scandinavia,children born in lower income families have a better chance than their U.S. counterparts to form a substantially higher income family by adulthood.
In the U.S., a middle class background means a 26% chance of moving up;24% of moving DOWN and 50% of staying about the same. But if you are born poor you are likely to stay poor. Only 35% of children born in the bottom fifth of the income scale will achieve middle class status or better. 76% of children in the top 5th will be middle class or higher.
The foregoing applies to native born Americans. Immigrants get pay that is initially low here ( but much higher than in their native countries ) and their children advance quite rapidly. Second generation performance is phenomenal.
It USED to be that each generation had a higher income in inflation adjusted dollars than the previous one. Men born in the 60's were earning more in the 1990's than their father's generation did at a similar age and their families income was higher as well. That kind of progress has stalled. Today, men in their 30's earn 12% LESS than the previous generation. What is helping the American family tread water is working women.
The biggest difference between now and 1968 is the number of children living in single parent households. It's 30 % now vs. 12 % then. Poverty in single parent households is five times that of two parent households. It's one reason the poverty rate hit 13.2% last year. If we had the same number of single parent families we had back in 1970 we'd have a poverty rate 30% lower than the current rate. Among women under age 30, more than half of all births occur out of wedlock.
The Brookings study found another interesting reason for stubborn poverty and lower opportunity. the better educated are marrying each other more. And getting married later. College grads are more likely to marry other college grads and the number of families where both spouses have degrees is far greater than a generation ago. Since there is a strict correlation between a college degree and income, disparities are exacerbated.
The Brookings Study reached the same conclusion as the Harvard Study which parroted the Princeton Study: to avoid poverty and join the middle class, graduate high school, work full time and marry BEFORE having any children. Doing all three drops the chances of being poor from 12% to 2 %. In contrast to the other two studies, the Brookings study said nothing about staying out of jail. The two previous studies said that staying out of jail along with the other three gave one a 99% chance of avoiding a life of poverty.



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