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Early Childhood Achievement Gaps and Social Mobility (Part 3)
Part 3 in a three-part series on inequalities in early childhood development.Achievement gaps open up in early childhood, damaging chances of upward mobility—especially for those from poor backgrounds....
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Downward Social Mobility: the Glass-Floor Problem
When it comes to the economic malaise facing America, the biggest problem is not the widening gap between rich and poor, but the stagnation of social mobility. When the income gap of one generation...
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The Case for Downward Mobility
Social mobility comes in two varieties: absolute and relative. Absolute mobility is a measure of whether people are better or worse off than their parents were, which means that everyone can be...
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Obamacare and Social Mobility?
With the government shutdown, the substance of health care policy is being overshadowed by political brinksmanship. But the policy goal of the Affordable Care Act—high quality, affordable health...
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The Marriage Crisis Hurts Social Mobility
Marriage is becoming an affluent pursuit, and social mobility is stagnating: two big contemporary American problems. Are they related?Derek Thompson at The Atlantic thinks so. His “How America's...
View ArticleLower Income or Lower Class: What Matters for Social Mobility?
Social mobility tends to be measured using income brackets, rather than class – but money is only half the story. Richard Rothstein over at the Economic Policy Institute argues the achievement gap in...
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Social Mobility and the American Dream
The American Dream is not dead, but Americans today experience less socioeconomic fluidity between where they are born and where they end up than people in comparable nations, including Great Britain....
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Born to be Mobile? Why Where You Grow Up Matters for How Much Money You Make
The influence of parental background on future earnings varies according to which metropolitan area you live in. That’s the message of the Harvard economists behind the Equality of Opportunity Project,...
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Community College May Hold the Key to Social Mobility
What’s the secret to getting in? With college application season fast approaching, it’s a question that weighs heavily on the minds of many high school seniors and their parents. Academics and...
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Mobility Begins in Early Childhood
Teens vs. Toddlers: When to Intervene?:First in a four-part series examining the debate over when to intervene to improve social mobility. Read Part 2.The younger kids are, the less the Federal...
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A Lack of Social Mobility May Foretell Rising Class Warfare
I am going to write about John Rawls, the great liberal philosopher. But bear with me: I am also going to consider how much tax people want to pay. Rawls first: in 1971, the quiet, unassuming Harvard...
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Teen Years Important for Mobility
Teens vs. Toddlers: When to Intervene?:Second in a four-part series examining the debate over when to intervene to improve social mobility.Early childhood is important, but there is a danger of...
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Washington's Democratic Process Has Us at Fiscal DEFCON
The Washington democratic process is actively undermining U.S. fiscal policy. This is not a uniquely American ailment: all democratic political systems tend towards myopia. Legislators usually have to...
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Gender Gaps in Relative Mobility
Have women won the gender war? Looking at the debate following last week’s release of data on women’s earnings in 2012 from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, you might think so. Commentators have rushed...
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The Glass Floor: Education, Downward Mobility, and Opportunity Hoarding
From an intergenerational perspective, the U.S. income distribution is sticky at both ends. Affluence and poverty are both partially inherited. Policy and research has focused on upward mobility,...
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Skills, Mobility and the Glass Floor
DownloadsThe Glass Floor: Education, Downward Mobility, and Opportunity Hoarding
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Skills Matter for U.S. Social Mobility
The U.S. is not a meritocracy. As Kimberly Howard and I point out in our new paper “The Glass Floor,” there are plenty of smart, low-income kids who remain stuck at the bottom of the income...
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Private Education, Social Class, and Social Mobility
Social class is as British as rain or tea—and class is currently dominating the social mobility debate over on the other side of the pond. Not in terms of money or education, but in subtler forms of...
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Parental Unemployment Hurts Kids’ Futures and Social Mobility
Unemployment is bad news all round—and it may damage social mobility through its effects on parenting, and the drive and ambition of the next generation. That’s the warning given by Larry...
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Six Social Mobility Trends to Give Thanks For
Social mobility studies can sometimes, like economics, be a dismal science: the barriers to opportunity are high, and hard to lower. But it is far from all bad news. So in the spirit of Thanksgiving,...
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