From Policy Mic:
Researchers at Harvard have released a new study showing that while the income gap is as wide as ever, there is still some chance for those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder to climb up. The study analyzed various social factors — parent/child income, college attendance, teenage birth — and calculated the likelihood of a child from the bottom 20% of the economy working up to the top 20%.
But while the national average of economic mobility was a low 7.8%, the most shocking thing that the researchers found was the wide discrepancy among states and researchers: “[I]n some places, such as Salt Lake City and San Jose, the chance of moving from the bottom fifth to the top fifth is as high as 12.9%. In others, such as Charlotte and Indianapolis, it is as low as 4.4%.”
The sharp difference in upward mobility in different regions led the researchers to conclude, “The U.S. is better described as a collection of societies, some of which are ‘lands of opportunity’ with high rates of mobility across generations, and others in which few children escape poverty.”
Apt. 11d 
Yes but…
Many Americans move during their lifetime. Some move frequently. Thus, the state the family called home while the subjects were in high school is not necessarily the state in which they were children, nor their adult home.
It’s interesting to compare this map of state population changes over the last decade to the map on page 92 of the study: http://www.census.gov/dataviz/visualizations/043/.
People are moving to states with low mobility. Does that make sense? Or are the states which scored well on the “mobility” index the states which offer solid education–such as the Midwest–but are boring enough for people to leave the state to chase opportunity, say, in Georgia, Florida, or North Carolina?
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I would add “cold” to “boring.”
It is very suspicious that the allegedly low mobility states are the ones people are moving to.
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I wonder how much of the low economic mobility is really about racism and xenophobia. We live in a Southern low economic mobility state and I have seen the local school board, for example, favor candidates whose (white) families have a long history in the area over minority candidates with more impressive credentials. I’m sure that the decision makers would insist that it’s not racism, it’s just that we know Becky so well and she grew up here and we know her family . . . .We’ve come to think of it as people preserving social capital by favoring those from their own social networks, but I do hope that at some point the dam will break and it will no longer be possible for ‘old families’ to hold onto all the privileges for people like them. I think this probably happens in small towns all over the south.
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Steve Sailer points out that the low-mobility and high-mobility states are fairly easily predicted by racial demographics. So, the higher the percentage of African Americans in the populations, the lower the mobility, and the higher the white population, the higher the mobility. I know a lot of people can’t stand Steve Sailer, but I think that is the answer.
People (even or especially smart people who should know better) do seem to forget that the 50 US states vary hugely in racial demographics (take for example Krugman’s comparison of educational outcomes in Wisconsin and Texas).
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I think the problem most people are going to have w/ Sailer’s point is that he thinks this is because African Americans are inherently inferior, and that this is essentially unchangeable. That, of course, is not supported by evidence, but is an example of how Sailer is a racist. If you don’t think that the problems African Americans have are a result of their being inherently inferior, that is, if you reject Sailer’s basic assumptions, then this is a problem that can be solved, not one that should lead us to just shrug our shoulders, as he would do.
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And Louisa is giving a personally observed explanation for a race-based correlation that does not resort to racist assumptions about the ability of people to succeed/lead/experience mobility.
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Oops, that was me, bj
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You are all speaking of this study as if it measures local, lifetime opportunity. It doesn’t. People who move from one state to another are more likely to make more money than those who pass up opportunities–education, new jobs or promotions, better schools for the children.
A new Pew Social & Demographic Trends survey finds that most Americans have moved to a new community at least once in their lives, although a notable number — nearly four-in-ten — have never left the place in which they were born1. Asked why they live where they do, movers most often cite the pull of economic opportunity. Stayers most often cite the tug of family and connections.
Both the survey and Census data indicate that the biggest differences in the characteristics of movers and stayers revolve around geography and education. (…) Three-quarters of college graduates have moved at least once, compared with just over half of Americans with no more than a high school diploma. College graduates also move longer distances — and move more often — than Americans with a high school diploma or less, and employment plays a greater role in their decisions about where to live. By income group, the most affluent Americans are the most likely to have moved.
http://www.pewsocialtrends.org/2008/12/17/who-moves-who-stays-put-wheres-home/
Is this study measuring mobility? I don’t know. You are less likely to get ahead if you aren’t willing to sacrifice cultural and kinship ties. If you can’t stand the idea of raising your children a thousand miles away from grandma, you’re choosing a different lifestyle than someone who places income over family ties.
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I think Cranberry is right that geographical mobility might be higher among those with higher economic mobility (– or, the other way around — ).
“Thus, the state the family called home while the subjects were in high school is not necessarily the state in which they were children, nor their adult home.”
But, the study does give numbers for the geographic mobility of the population group in their study. When they know the location of the child at both 5 & 16 (for the later cohort), 86% of the children live in the same place when they are 16 as when they are 5. As adults, about 40% of the children live in a different area than where they grew up.
In the study, they try to address the relationship between the likelihood of migration and mobility by looking at correlations between areas with high & low migration rates and income mobility — they do not find a relationship. That’s not the same relationship at looking at income mobility v migration (something they should do in their sample by comparing income mobility in groups that migrated v didn’t migrate — my quick read doesn’t find a number for this comparison).
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