Here is an historic graphic of Social Mobility in the US.
Here is the Gini Coeficient that measures inequality (the higher the more unequal), which actually understates the reality because it’s not that great at reflecting internal inequality in the top quintile (i.e. things like how the top 1% are now way much richer than the top 10% than before).
A problem with these graphs & your inferences is it’s objectively unclear what to expect.
What do they look like for other countries?
What part of this is explained by other factors like unique historical advantages (eg, an industrial base untouched by war during the postwar boom) dissipating as other countries rebuild & catch up?
Can we decouple these time-dependent factors to get an expected baseline performance apart from them?
With that social mobility graph, should we expect nearly all children to earn more than their parents every subsequent generation indefinitely?
The remarkably similar graph provided by the source cited by yours shows birthyear of the child starting in 1940.
Couldn’t their parents earning substantially less, perhaps by living through the Great Depression, and the postwar boom significantly explain the high proportion earning more than their parents?
And as GDP per capita growth rate declines, wouldn’t we likewise expect a declining proportion of children to earn more than their parents?
A base of reference would really help here.
As for the Gini coefficient, we see a 7% range from 35% to 42%.
While this is an increase, it doesn’t seem staggering & needs evidence to distinctly support your conclusion.
Some problems you mentioned were always present or worse when that Gini coefficient was lower: gerrymandering, obstructions to vote (felon disenfranchisement, intimidation, poll taxes & tests), discriminatory incarceration, 2-party system due to plurality voting, etc.
They’re not new developments systematically leading in the direction you claim.
It looks like you started with your conclusion & worked backwards to confirm it with evidence that is not as conclusive as you claim.
An open-minded skeptic wouldn’t be convinced.
Social Mobility measures both people going up and down in social class, and its relative rather than absolute - it’s a measure of movement between social classes in society, not about children being wealthier than their parents.
Your entire line of argumentation to deny it (one wonders what’s your motivation to do so) is completely wrong because you don’t even know what it actually means.
Rather than a wall of text of denialism, how about you provide an alternative explanation for the status of modern America compared to the days when a single white collar worker could earn enough to feed a family of 5 and have a car and a nice house.
Or is it your whole point that America is just fine and has never been better?!
A problem with these graphs & your inferences is it’s objectively unclear what to expect. What do they look like for other countries? What part of this is explained by other factors like unique historical advantages (eg, an industrial base untouched by war during the postwar boom) dissipating as other countries rebuild & catch up? Can we decouple these time-dependent factors to get an expected baseline performance apart from them?
With that social mobility graph, should we expect nearly all children to earn more than their parents every subsequent generation indefinitely? The remarkably similar graph provided by the source cited by yours shows birthyear of the child starting in 1940. Couldn’t their parents earning substantially less, perhaps by living through the Great Depression, and the postwar boom significantly explain the high proportion earning more than their parents? And as GDP per capita growth rate declines, wouldn’t we likewise expect a declining proportion of children to earn more than their parents? A base of reference would really help here.
As for the Gini coefficient, we see a 7% range from 35% to 42%. While this is an increase, it doesn’t seem staggering & needs evidence to distinctly support your conclusion.
Some problems you mentioned were always present or worse when that Gini coefficient was lower: gerrymandering, obstructions to vote (felon disenfranchisement, intimidation, poll taxes & tests), discriminatory incarceration, 2-party system due to plurality voting, etc. They’re not new developments systematically leading in the direction you claim.
It looks like you started with your conclusion & worked backwards to confirm it with evidence that is not as conclusive as you claim. An open-minded skeptic wouldn’t be convinced.
Social Mobility measures both people going up and down in social class, and its relative rather than absolute - it’s a measure of movement between social classes in society, not about children being wealthier than their parents.
Your entire line of argumentation to deny it (one wonders what’s your motivation to do so) is completely wrong because you don’t even know what it actually means.
Rather than a wall of text of denialism, how about you provide an alternative explanation for the status of modern America compared to the days when a single white collar worker could earn enough to feed a family of 5 and have a car and a nice house.
Or is it your whole point that America is just fine and has never been better?!