Citation URL: http://www.urban.org/DanielPMcMurrer

Adapted in part from the "Opportunity in America" series of policy briefs, this volume focuses on social and economic mobility in the United States. Class or family background has a strong effect on individual success, the authors find. They examine the possible reasons for this relationship; how it has changed over the past century; and the role of the economy, the welfare system, and education in opening up opportunities for the less fortunate.

Adapted in part from the "Opportunity in America" series of policy briefs, this volume focuses on social and economic mobility in the United States. Class or family background has a strong effect on individual success, the authors find. They examine the possible reasons for this relationship; how it has changed over the past century; and the role of the economy, the welfare system, and education in opening up opportunities for the less fortunate.

[Washington Post] The welfare rolls have shrunk to their lowest level since 1970, and the president has good reason to celebrate. Yet a close look at the number of welfare recipients who will be required to find work in the next six years suggest that it's too early for political bell-ringing and that a recession no greater than that of 1990 could swell the rolls again and make it impossible for states to meet the requirements of the new law.

With the enactment of welfare reforms in 1996, a large percentage of former welfare recipients entered the American job market. This brief answers the many questions brought up by this shift: Are there jobs available? If so, can former welfare recipients successfully compete for those jobs? Once settled in a job, what are the chances of someone previously on welfare earning enough to become self-sufficient? Also within the brief, a separate but related section estimates the actual number of workers that welfare reform added to the labor force in the United States.

This report examines the relationship between an individual's socioeconomic status and the status of his or her parents—intergenerational mobility—and the reasons for any change in this relationship over time. The paper compares intergenerational mobility in the U.S. to that of other countries and draws conclusions about opportunities for upward mobility in the United States.

Ensuring equal chances for all to succeed is a value Americans have long embraced. They are more likely than other nationalities to believe in the importance of talent and effort in shaping a person’s life prospects. They are also more likely to reject social class as an acceptable determinant of whether someone succeeds or fails. Given such a strong consensus on the goal of equal opportunity, the American public has paid remarkably little attention to how close our society is to achieving it. In the hope of beginning to fill this gap, this brief looks at how much circumstances of birth affect an individual's chances of success in today’s America.

The incomes of American families change frequently. Some of the poor get richer, some of the rich get poorer, and for a variety of reasons: accumulation of job skills and experience, marriage and divorce, job change, addition or loss of a second paycheck, and business success or failure. But despite this churning, overall rates of mobility in the United States have not changed over time. Thus, it is fair to conclude that increases in annual inequality have worsened the distribution of lifetime incomes. Although the disparity in economic rewards has increased, the availability of those rewards—the probability of success or failure—has remained unchanged.

The authors review a number of studies that have focused on the income gap between the rich and the poor in the United States and discuss the following topics: the relationship between size and availability of economic rewards in American society; economic mobility in the United States; and cross-national comparisons, in which economic mobility in the United States is compared to that of other countries. A table that presents U.S. mobility rates using relative quintile-to-quintile transitions covering various periods from 1967 to 1991 is included, along with an article by the authors entitled, "How Much Do Americans Move Up and Down the Economic Ladder?"

Equality and justice are certainly among the most basic of American ideals, yet the distribution of American income is severely unequal throughout the population. This brief attempts to decide whether or not this uneven distribution is fair, that is, whether it is compatible with justice. First establishing the liberal and conservative views on this point and then questioning what justice actually is, the brief ultimately asserts that real equality and justice could only exist in a world of equal opportunity.

Is the American dream in trouble? Has opportunity in America really diminished? This paper seeks to answer these questions by offering a historical perspective. The paper reviews the nation's record of achievement and the benefits and challenges of meritocracy. It discusses the necessity of creating a level "playing field" for all and equipping individuals with the tools to achieve success by broadening access to education.

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