To anyone paying attention to the growing wealth inequality in the United States over the past 50 years it should come as no surprise that their is less economic mobility in America than in many other developed countries. Our pundits and politicians almost unanimously extol the notion that our freedoms have led us to be the most exceptional nation on earth, where the poorest of the poor, through hard work can raise themselves up to the height of the economic food chain. Any man or woman can become a millionaire! You just have to want it bad enough. America is a golden land of opportunity and if you aren’t rich its your own damn fault, you lazy dirty [insert hippy or the name of the requisite ethnic group you intend to demean here].
The facts, of course, say otherwise. Economic mobility, i.e., the actual percentage of people who improve their economic status is less in the State than in many other nations in Western Europe and Canada. The numbers don’t lie:
[M]any researchers have reached a conclusion that turns conventional wisdom on its head: Americans enjoy less economic mobility than their peers in Canada and much of Western Europe. The mobility gap has been widely discussed in academic circles, but a sour season of mass unemployment and street protests has moved the discussion toward center stage. […]
At least five large studies in recent years have found the United States to be less mobile than comparable nations. A project led by Markus Jantti, an economist at a Swedish university, found that 42 percent of American men raised in the bottom fifth of incomes stay there as adults. That shows a level of persistent disadvantage much higher than in Denmark (25 percent) and Britain (30 percent) — a country famous for its class constraints.
Meanwhile, just 8 percent of American men at the bottom rose to the top fifth. That compares with 12 percent of the British and 14 percent of the Danes.
How can these so-called “socialist” countries provide better financial opportunities to their citizens than the greatest nation on earth? How can England, long “known” as a nation where class rules all, provide more advantages for lower income individuals to climb out of poverty than the land of the free? Aren’t we a classless society? Isn’t America the one nation where merit trumps class privilege every time? Don’t Americans rise or fall based on their work ethic and not the social class into which they are born? Well not exactly. As the NY Times article reports studies demonstrate that roughly two thirds of individuals born into families in the upper 1/5 income of stay within the the upper 2/5 of income while roughly 2/3 of people born to families in the lowest 1/5 of incomes never rise higher than the lowest 2/5 of income.
Conservatives and Republicans typically argue that the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest, the lower classes and the upper ones (i.e., our ever increasing wealth and income inequality) doesn’t matter because Americans have greater chances for upward mobility. Unfortunately for most people in America, they are dead wrong. Economic mobility for the majority of American citizens, or stated in more colloquial terms the chance to “improve our lot in life,” is far less than for our peers in Western Europe and Canada. The American Dream for most people is just a myth that even Republicans can no longer ignore:
John Bridgeland, a former aide to President George W. Bush who helped start Opportunity Nation, an effort to seek policy solutions, said he was “shocked” by the international comparisons. “Republicans will not feel compelled to talk about income inequality,” Mr. Bridgeland said. “But they will feel a need to talk about a lack of mobility — a lack of access to the American Dream.”
This didn’t used to be the case. During the heady post WWII years American incomes saw tremendous increases, and the glaring wealth and income inequality that existed at the time of the Great Depression narrowed significantly. The middle class grew as our government provided more chances for lower income individuals to afford college, as Unions helped wages rise and bargained for other benefits (i.e., [pensions and health care) and as social programs such as Social Security and Medicare kept the elderly, once they retired, from slipping back into poverty. Financial institutions were regulated to decrease the risk of bank failures and financial crises, and the FDIC protected the savings of ordinary Americans.
All that changed, however, with the conservative revolution that led to less regulation and less spending on programs that benefited the poor and middle classes such as subsidization of higher education. As an example, the cost of four years of college in America is much higher in the United States than in Canada or many Western European countries. France for example has 82 universities, and none of them charge tuition. German Universities charge a flat rate of 1000 euros per year for tuition. Compare that to America where:
In 2011-12, public four-year colleges charge, on average, $8,244 in tuition and fees for in-state students. The average surcharge for full-time out-of-state students at these institutions is $12,526.
Private nonprofit four-year colleges charge, on average, $28,500 per year in tuition and fees.
My son graduated from the University of Pittsburgh, a respected mid-tier public university. Their current mandatory fees are $860 per year. In state students pay (depending on major) $15,272 – $19,226 per year in tuition. Out of State students pay between $24,680 and $31,368 per year. Housing and food costs are not included. However, just the tuition and fees costs alone over a four year period to obtain a degree from Pitt is substantial. The lowest tuition and fees amount a student would pay (assuming these rates do not rise, which we know is highly unlikely) would equal roughly $64,000 for an instate student and for an out of state student, well over $100,000. Add in housing and food costs, books, etc. and you can see that obtaining a 4 year degree from a decent public university is a very expensive proposition. Even though my son had a full tuition scholarship, he and we had to scrape together each year about $4,000 – $,5000 per semester to cover fees, books, housing and food. And we were lucky.
And that is comparable to most good public universities in the US. Yes community colleges are cheaper, but not as cheap as many European schools of far better quality. As for top tier schools such as one of the Ivy League universities, an undergraduate student is looking at paying tuition and other costs well in excess $200,000 for his or her degree.
No wonder kids are graduating from US Colleges with massive debt loads. Add to that the poor job market for most of them and is it a surprise to see so much unrest and anger among our young people? They were told that a college degree was the ticket to a career that would at least give them a chance for the same financial status as their parents. Much to their dismay (and mine) that is proving to be a lie. And what about all the kids who have the smarts to qualify for college but no means to afford it?
And this is but one example of what conservative tax policies created. As we have shifted the burden of higher education to students and their parents through lowering taxes, we have seen that fewer and fewer students can afford the type of high quality education needed in today;s world. Oh the upper 1% can afford this expense easily, but for the rest of us its a terrible burden if we can afford it at all. And this is only one factor that has contributed to massive income inequality and lack of economic ability in America.
The shredding of our social safety net is another, So is lack of universal health care and the shift of health care costs to workers, much less the complete lack of any health care for millions of Americans, end lousy health care at that. Others have documented our nation;s failures in that regard so I won;t bother repeating their work, but nonetheless it is damning indictment of what is left of our democracy.
Yet Republicans are still insisting on more tax cuts for the wealthy and more pain and austerity for the middle and lower classes. In short, they would further erode if not eliminate the very government social programs that created the American middle class in the post war era and damn us and our children to economic serfdom in order to benefit the richest among us. Every time they tell you these policies will restore America’s prosperity they are lying, at least with respect to the prosperity of anyone who isn’t a large corporation, a wealthy individual or a overcompensated senior executive. Every time they tell you that socialism is evil and the reason our country is in this mess (by which they mean social security, medicare, unemployment benefits, worker’s compensation, disability benefits, consumer protection, worker safety laws and the federal agencies that are empowered to regulate financial institutions, food and drug safety, environmental safety, labor rights, etc.) they are lying.
In Western Europe and Canada there are still politicians that must answer to their constituents. In our country, the politicians have to answer to their corporate benefactors and their lobbyists. In a nutshell, that tells you all you need to know as to why the American Dream of upward mobility is dead.
