Chances Are You Do Not Have Upward Social Mobility

The other day there was a discussion on the Al Franken show about social mobility in the United States. I had heard that the idea of Americans pulling themselves up by their boot straps was becoming anachronistic. In fact if a person lives in almost any other developed country, the chances of middle and lower class people moving up the social ladder is higher than in the United States.

The study focused on two points. “The first is the question of intergenerational mobility, or the degree to which the economic success of children is
independent of the economic status of their parents. A higher level of intergenerational mobility is often interpreted as a sign of greater fairness, or equality of opportunity, in a society. The second aspect is the short-term question of the amount by which family incomes change from year to year. By studying short-term mobility we can determine whether incomes are rising or falling for families at different points in the income distribution. We can also determine whether the size of these income variations, or the level of annual income volatility, is changing over time. Increased volatility is undesirable to the extent that it represents an increase in economic insecurity.”


This is the link to the study of social mobility in the United States. http://www.americanprogress.org/atf/cf/%7BE9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521-5D6FF2E06E03%7D/HERTZ_MOBILITY_ANALYSIS.PDF

Here are some main points from the executive summary and conclusion of the study.

Long-Term findings:
Education, race, health and state of residence are four key channels by which
economic status is transmitted from parent to child.
-This is interesting by the fact that health care is becoming such an economic burden. Everyone assumes education levels, race, and living in some bumblefuck state like Tennessee can greatly limit intergenerational social mobility. But the lack of universal healthcare is now contributing to economic stratification too.

African American children who are born in the bottom quartile are nearly twice as
likely to remain there as adults than are white children whose parents had identical incomes, and are four times less likely to attain the top quartile.

The difference in mobility for blacks and whites persists even after controlling for
a host of parental background factors, children’s education and health, as well as
whether the household was female-headed or receiving public assistance.
-This is intolerable. It’s 2006 and it still sucks to be black in America.

After controlling for a host of parental background variables, upward mobility varied by region of origin, and is highest (in percentage terms) for those who grew up in the South Atlantic and East South Central regions, and lowest for those raised in the West South Central and Mountain regions.
-Memphis falls more in the West South Central area of the country (Arkansas and Oklahoma).

By international standards, the United States has an unusually low level of
intergenerational mobility: our parents’ income is highly predictive of our incomes
as adults. Intergenerational mobility in the United States is lower than in France,
Germany, Sweden, Canada, Finland, Norway and Denmark. Among high-income
countries for which comparable estimates are available, only the United Kingdom
had a lower rate of mobility than the United States.
-The New American Way: The rich stay rich and poor stay poor. Rewarding merit is so Horatio Alger. Eliminating estate taxes will definitely fix the problem of America not having a permanent aristocracy.

Key findings relating to short-run, year-to-year income movements include the following:

The overall volatility of household income increased significantly between 1990-91 and 1997-98 and again in 2003-04.
-That fucking sucks.

Since 1990-91, there has been an increase in the share of households who
experienced significant downward short-term mobility. The share that saw their
incomes decline by $20,000 or more (in real terms) rose from 13.0 percent in 1990-91 to 14.8 percent in 1997-98 to 16.6 percent in 2003-04.
-Is this what Bush meant when he talked about an ownership society?

The middle class is experiencing more insecurity of income, while the top decile is experiencing less. From 1997-98 to 2003-04, the increase in downward short-term mobility was driven by the experiences of middle-class households (those earning between $34,510 and $89,300 in 2004 dollars). Households in the top quintile saw no increase in downward short-term mobility, and households in the top decile ($122,880 and up) saw a reduction in the frequency of large negative income shocks.
-So middle class people are less secure and rich people are more secure? Its good those tax cuts for the rich are working.

The median household was no more upwardly mobile in 2003-04, a year when GDP grew strongly, than it was it was during the recession of 1990-91.
-And republicans wonder why people don’t think this is a great economy. Get a clue assholes!

Households whose adult members all worked more than 40 hours per week for two years in a row were more upwardly mobile in 1990-91 and 1997-98 than households who worked fewer hours. Yet this was not true in 2003-04, suggesting that people who work long hours on a consistent basis no longer appear to be able to generate much upward mobility for their families.
-Republican talking point: Rich people are rewarded for working harder than poor and middle class people. Just work harder. BULLSHIT!

So what does this mean for Memphis? Well, we have a predominantly black population. Strike one. We border the area of the country with the lowest rate of social mobility. Strike two. We live in one of the unhealthiest cities in the America. Memphis is the unhealthiest city in America to be a woman. Strike three. (Shit! We’re not even done with the subjects and we’ve already struck out.) Our population is undereducated and the school system isn’t very good. Strike four. This doesn’t even factor in the corruption and incompetence permeating our local and state government.

I once had a friend who told me about a conversation he had with a guy from Lagos, Nigeria. The Nigerian guy described how hard it was for him to watch his country decline. When he was a kid in the late 70’s and early 80’s, it wasn’t unusual for middle class families to have decent houses and kids playing Atari game systems. But by the 90’s, the middle class was almost completely wiped out. People could only dream of the opportunities that once existed only a few years earlier.

Some will say I’m once again being negative.(I seriously tried not to be negative.) That good things are happening in Memphis. There are some good things happen, but I don’t think it is enough and the benefits are not very evenly distributed. In addition, on a national level, I think Memphis is hypersensitive to larger trends. Bankruptcy, healthcare, poverty, public education, and social stratification are all national problems which are extremely pronounced in our city. I don’t want to be like the Nigerian guy in 2012 saying how great the late 1990’s were, but how can I not worry.