U.S. Kids Far Less Likely To Out-Earn Their Parents, As Inequality Grows

[Blue Shoes]

Source: NPR

The widening gap between rich and poor Americans has pushed the chances of children earning more money than their parents down to around 50 percent, economic researchers say. That's a sharp fall from 1940, when 90 percent of kids were destined to move up the income ladder.

Describing an American Dream that for many has faded into a less plentiful reality, Stanford economics Professor Raj Chetty said in a news release, "It's basically a coin flip as to whether you'll do better than your parents."

The downward trend held true across the U.S. — and the steepest declines were seen among middle class families, according to Chetty and his fellow researchers in the Equality of Opportunity Project.

Read more: http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2016/12/09/504989751/u-s-kids-far-less-likely-to-out-earn-their-parents-as-inequality-grows

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The middle class is falling away and its doubtful Trump will do anything about it. We're looking at increasing rates of poverty, just as programs designed to help the poor are going to be slashed.

[MiniMe]

1. I never out-earned my parents

I'm just lucky that my parents did well enough to leave me enough to inherit something. I started working in the Reagan era, and they were doing away with pensions and raises at that point.

[Blue Shoes]

3. Its started then, but now its at crisis levels. nt

[LisaM]

4. Same here (my parents are still with us, thankfully)

It was more the fact that many things (housing, especially) cost less, and then my father was a teacher and got a good retirement. I make an okay living, and have the usual retirement plans (though I didn't get them until I was in my 30s), but my dad worries about me. I don't own a house, so I don't have any real assets. It's scary.

[RKP5637]

2. Trump is in the presidency as an investment for himself and his cronies. Any thinking otherwise

really, like really, have their heads up their butt! And a sideline, will be to destroy democracy along the way. The clueless Americans just elected a dictator, but many are just too damn idiotic to comprehend what's going on. FFS, just a tiny look at his appointments should clue even the most stupid in as to where we're headed. One would think, but I doubt it.

[yallerdawg]

5. A little perspective, please.

What our kids have available to them - gen x and millennials - is extraordinary.

When I was a kid I had 3 channels on the TV which stopped transmitting at midnight and the phone was mounted to the wall.

The only computer we saw was on Star Trek!

My TV had tubes in it!

They were drafting kids and sending then to actual wars.

I think they are already "doing better" than their parents. Just like we did.

[arithia]

6. cause having HBO is so much better than a living wage

Please do not conflate the ubiquity of technology that was once new to you with economic statistics or economic mobility.

It's akin to the Repug argument that the poor aren't poor because they have a fridge, cell phone and microwave when those are basic, cheap amenities/necessities of modern life.

[yallerdawg]

7. HBO?

You live in a world we could only imagine.

You have what we never had.

I'm suggesting that all this sturm und drang about money is a matter of relativity.

[arithia]

9. Uh....

That's the funny thing about technology... it tends to advance in complexity (and drop in price) with the slow march of time. Living in a world you "could only imagine" doesn't mean people are better off than they were 50 or 100 years ago. Different does not equal better.

The minimum wage stopped rising with inflation decades ago. My grandfather was able to buy himself a nice house in Hershey on a minimum wage salary when he graduated high school. Today, minimum wage workers can barely make ends meet. We just lived through a massive recession courtesy of the Bush administration where the bulk of minimum wage workers had 4+ year college degrees. (And don't give me any bull about what their majors were, either. I knew people with tech degrees that couldn't find work due to outsourcing.)

We as a nation don't buy or build American- jobs are routinely outsourced to slave-wage laborers overseas. Unions have been under attack for decades to weaken worker's rights. Even more jobs are going to robots, courtesy of automation. Our tech is quite literally replacing living, breathing people who need to provide for their families.

There is no relativity here. Sure, we have some cool new toys, but that can be said when you compare *any* generation.

[.99center]

10. That's some strong stink bait on your hook.

Gen X grew up with PC's, flat screens, and cell phones?

"They were drafting kids and sending then to actual wars"

Them fake wars had real consequences, including thousands of deaths from those age groups you're trashing.

Do you take pleasure in knowing that the children and teenagers of Gen Xers and Millennial's are going to be worse off?

[yallerdawg]

11. Tell me your worse off.

I see no comparison.

You want more?

Of course. But I believe you are being fed a load of crap.

There is no comparison. You have things and opportunities and advantages 60 and older never had.

[Schema Thing]

8. Is this dollar-for-dollar or inflation adjusted?

I'm assuming it's inflation adjusted; but if not, wow, it's even worse!