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A New Federal Policy Architecture to Promote Social Mobility
Right now in Washington, it's all fiscal cliffs and debt ceilings. But there is a slower-burn crisis taking place in the US: the quiet decline of social mobility. Harvard academic Robert Putnam has...
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In Reducing Teen Pregnancy, Shame Is Not a Four-Letter Word
New York is deploying a powerful weapon to reduce teen pregnancy: shame. New advertisements around the city dramatize the truncated life chances of children born to teenagers; in one, a tear-stained...
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Shame and Teen Pregnancy
Does shame perform a useful social function? Is it legitimate for the state to engender feelings of shame to further public goals? Is the answer to either of these questions affirmative, in the case of...
View ArticleRichard Reeves Joins Brookings Economic Studies as Fellow and Policy Director
Washington, D.C. – Richard Reeves joins Brookings' Economic Studies program as a fellow and policy director for the Center on Children and Families. Vice President and Economic Studies Co-Director...
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Opening up the Middle Class
Social mobility is a hot topic this summer. A major new study by Harvard’s Raj Chetty and colleagues has shown powerful effects of place on life chances, with children from similar backgrounds in, say,...
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The Economic Case for Social Mobility
Social mobility is flavor of the month in the politico-academic complex. President Obama passionately denounced the narrow opportunities for upward mobility from the bottom of the income scale as a...
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Borrowing To Invest Easily Trumps Borrowing To Spend
The present has a natural advantage over the future. Nobody ever says, "c'mon, let's live for next year!' One of the great challenges of being human is balancing immediate temptations against rewards...
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The Other American Dream: Social Mobility, Race and Opportunity
Today, President Obama is marking the 50th anniversary of the historic March on Washington, led by civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. The March on Washington was for jobs, as well as freedom –...
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Low Wage Americans Lose Faith in Social Mobility
Low-wage Americans no longer believe in the American Dream. According to a new survey of low wage workers produced by Oxfam America and conducted by Hart Research Associates, three out of four...
View ArticleElites Protect Their Own Against Downward Social Mobility
Lack of upward mobility – in Obama’s phrase, “the chance through honest toil to advance one's station in life” - damages society, and the economy. Less is usually said about the other side of the coin:...
View ArticlePutting Social Mobility on the Corporate Agenda
Promoting social mobility is typically seen as a job for government. But it must be on the business agenda too. Social mobility is a critical ingredient of corporate social responsibility – but, more...
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Will Less Incarceration Mean More Social Mobility?
The U.S. has found itself in an age of mass imprisonment. Since 1980, the prison population has more than quadrupled. One in every 160 American adults is in prison.[1] More than half of black men...
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Funding Gaps in Public Schools Real Problem for Social Mobility, Not Parents’...
The public school system is a potentially powerful engine for social mobility, equalizing opportunities for children from diverse backgrounds. Right now, the engine is sputtering. Inequalities in...
View ArticleParenting, Politics, and Social Mobility
The deep divides in American education, from pre-kindergarten to post-graduate, threaten to create a class-based society. Advantage and disadvantage are inherited to a degree that undermines our claims...
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The Parenting Gap
According to a new Center on Children and Families paper by Richard Reeves and Kimberly Howard, the parenting gap is a big factor in the opportunity gap. The chances of upward social mobility are lower...
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Parenting Gap Damages Social Mobility and Opportunity
As Kimberly Howard and I discuss in a new paper from the Center on Children and Families, the parenting gap is a big factor in the opportunity gap. The chances of upward social mobility are lower for...
View ArticlePolitical Myopia and Partisanship Hurt Social Mobility
In theory, social mobility ought to be a bipartisan goal. Liberals favor equal opportunity; conservatives want hard work and talent to be fairly rewarded. In fact, both sides too often miss the mark,...
View ArticleInequality and Social Mobility: Breaking the Link
Fresh evidence for widening income inequality in the US is delivered on an almost weekly basis - but an important question is how far it influences social mobility. Some worry that the American polity...
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Early Childhood Achievement Gaps and Social Mobility (Part 1)
Part 1 in a three-part series on inequalities in early childhood development. Policy-makers have developed an obsession: early childhood. Obama is struggling to make pre-K education accessible to all....
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Early Childhood Achievement Gaps and Social Mobility (Part 2)
Part 2 in a three-part series on inequalities in early childhood development.Deep divisions between rich and poor emerge in early childhood, with lifetime implications for social mobility. Yesterday, I...
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