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An Addendum to “Immigration and the American Dream”
A high school degree is worth much more now than it was in 1970. In our piece last week on immigration, we noted that the educational attainment of immigrants has not changed much since 1970: the...
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The Fathering Gap and Social Mobility
First, the good news: Fathers are taking a larger role in their children’s lives, according to recent reports from the White House’s Working Families Summit. The amount of time fathers spend per week...
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Has the American Dream Moved to Canada?
Happy Canada Day! Canadians, especially those who like to compare themselves to the United States, have a couple of specific causes for celebration: higher median incomes and higher social mobility. A...
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Policies to Expand Women’s Opportunity
What is the best way to expand opportunity for women? A week after the White House produced their own recommendations about female economic opportunity, Aparna Mathur and Abby McCloskey over at AEI...
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Reformicons on Social Mobility: 3 Cheers and 3 Fears
Reformicons sound like the mechanized characters of a summer movie, but in fact, they are “reform conservatives” (a term coined by Brookings’s own EJ Dionne). Profiled over the weekend in the New York...
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Employee Ownership: The Case for Metro Action
If there was ever a good moment to promote the idea of employee ownership, surely this is it. The economy is limping away from the Great Recession, median earnings are stuck in treacle, while top...
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Should the US follow the UK to a Universal Credit?
British debates about welfare reform have often been influenced by American ideas. The Clinton-era welfare reforms were echoed in some of Tony Blair’s alterations to British benefits. Gordon Brown, as...
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The Barber Doctrine: Accountability and Autonomy for Schools to Close...
To say that K-12 education is important for social mobility is to state the obvious. Knowledge and skills give individuals the power to shape their own lives and make their own way in the world. Gaps...
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Hard-Core Liberals and Hard-Pressed Skeptics Share Doubts on American Dream
Do Americans believe in the American Dream? The short answer: most do, some don’t. The slightly longer answer: different classes and groups hold divergent views on the question of whether hard work can...
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A Win for Data Wonks in Paul Ryan’s Poverty Plan
Rep. Paul Ryan has generated lots of buzz around his proposals to expand EITC and reform the safety net through block grants, all outlined in his anti-poverty plan “Expanding Opportunity in America.”...
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Wealth Gaps: Time for Asset-Based Mobility Policies?
Income is the star of the inequality show, getting most of the headlines and attention. But wealth gaps are much greater than income gaps and may matter a great deal in terms of intergenerational...
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Are Obama and Ryan Proposals for an EITC Expansion Pro- or Anti- Mobility?
There’s at least one policy that both parties agree has been successful in combatting poverty: the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC). And rightly so – in 2012, the EITC pulled 6.5 million people out of...
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Teen Moms: The Difference Two Years and a Diploma Make
What would happen if teen mothers waited a few years to have children? What if they simply got their high school diploma? What if they did both? These are three of the “what-if” scenarios considered in...
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Saving Horatio Alger: The Data Behind the Words (and the Lego Bricks)
Hopefully you’ve had a chance to read our new Brookings Essay, Saving Horatio Alger. If not, we bet you’ve found three minutes to check out our new video, using Lego bricks to illustrate America’s...
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Classless America, Still?
The United States imagines itself as a classless society, based on a faith in natural equality – that all are “born equal.” (I’ve written a bit on this in Saving Horatio Alger, the latest Brookings...
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The Marriage Effect: Money or Parenting?
There is a growing marriage gap along class lines in America. This may be bad news for social mobility, since children raised by married parents typically do better in life on almost every available...
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Nursing Opportunity: Class Gaps in Breastfeeding and Policy Challenges
Differences in parenting behavior can exacerbate other inequalities, such as those in income and education. Take breastfeeding, for example. There is solid medical evidence that breast is better than...
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Poverty: It’s More than a Job Market Story
Between 2010 and 2013, the unemployment rate fell by 23% in the United States. The poverty rate, we predict, will have fallen by only one percent over the same time period. That is, for a second year...
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Inequality at the Top: Why Should we Care?
Everyone knows that inequality in the United States has risen in recent decades. And anyone who has looked at any data – or an earlier post from my Brookings colleague Gary Burtless - also knows that...
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