So true... It takes personal responsibility, discipline, and a little ambition to get ahead in life - Conservatives usually know this from experience. You can be the fastest, best paid shoveler on the block but if you make poor decisions in your personal life that lead you to continually spend more than you earn, you will never get ahead.
Such statements have been shown to be false when compared with the actual data... Which you chose to ignore.
Types
Mobility may be between generations ("inter-generational") or within a person or groups lifetime ("intra-generational"). It may be "absolute" or "relative"[1].
Inter-generational mobility compares a person’s (or group's) income to that of her/his/their parents. Intra-generational mobility, in contrast, refers to movement up or down over the course of a working career.[2] Absolute mobility involves widespread economic growth[1] and answers the question “To what extent do families improve their incomes over a generation?”[3] Relative mobility is specific to individuals or groups and occurs without relation to the economy as a whole[1]. It answers the question, "how closely are the economic fortunes of children tied to that of their parents?"[3] Relative mobility is a zero-sum game, absolute is not.
[edit]United States
Main article: Socio-economic mobility in the United States
How much economic mobility there is in America is disputed.
[edit]Intergenerational mobility
According to the 2007 "American Dream Report" study, "by some measurements" -- relative mobility between generations -- "we are actually a less mobile society than many other nations, including Canada, France, Germany and most Scandinavian countries. This challenges the notion of America as the land of opportunity."[1]
Another 2007 study ("Economic Mobility Project: Across Generations") found found significant upward "absolute" mobility from the late 1960s to 2007, with two thirds of those who were children in 1968 reporting more household income than their parents[3] (although most of this growth in total family income can be attributed to the increasing number of women who work since male earnings have stayed relatively stable throughout this time[3]).
However, in terms of relative mobility it stated: "contrary to American beliefs about equality of opportunity, a child’s economic position is heavily influenced by that of his or her parents."[3] 42% of children born to parents in the bottom fifth of the income distribution ("quintile") remain in the bottom, while 39% born to parents in the top fifth remain at the top.[3] Only half of the generation studied exceeded their parents economic standing by moving up one or more quintiles[3]. Moving between quintiles is more frequent in the middle quintiles (2-4) than in the lowest and highest quintiles. Of those in one of the quintiles 2-4 in 1996, approximately 35% stayed in the same quintile; and approximately 22% went up one quintile or down one quintile (moves of more than one quintile are rarer). 39% of those who were born into the top quintile as children in 1968 are likely to stay there, and 23% end up in the fourth quintile[3]. Children previously from lower-income families had only a 1% chance of having an income that ranks in the top 5%[4]. On the other hand, the children of wealthy families have a 22% chance of reaching the top 5%[4].
[edit]Intragenerational mobility
mobility of individuals [within a single generation] in the U.S. economy during the 1996 through 2005 period as over half of taxpayers moved to a different income quintile over this period"[5].
Other studies were less impressed with the rate of individual mobility in the United States. A 2007 inequality and mobility study (by Kopczuk, Saez and Song) and 2011 CBO study on "Trends in the Distribution of Household Income, found the pattern of annual and long-term earnings inequality "very close",[6] or "only modestly" different.[7] Another source described it as the mobility of "the guy who works in the college bookstore and has a real job by his early thirties," rather than poor people rising to middle class or middle income rising to wealth.[8]
In recent years several large studies have found that vertical inter-generational mobility is lower in American than in most developed countries.[9] A 1996 paper by Daniel P. McMurrer, Isabel V. Sawhill found "mobility rates seem to be quite similar across countries."[10]However a more recent paper (2007) found a person's parents is a great deal more predictive of their own income in the United States than other countries[4]. The United States had about 1/3 the ratio of mobility of Denmark and less than half that of Canada, Finland and Norway.[1]France, Germany, Sweden, also had higher mobility, with only theUnited Kingdom being less mobile[1].
Economic mobility in developing nations (such as those in Africa) is thought to be limited by both historical and global economic factors
It is clear that you do not understand the difference between income mobility between the quintiles and the increase of income among the specific quintiles. Your argument is one of a zero sum game, that one cannot prosper without that prosperity coming at the expense of all others. Such claims are without merit and have not been supported by any empirical data.
