American Dream collapsing for young adults, study says

[nitpicker]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/12/08/american-dream-collapsing-for-young-americans-study-says-finding-plunging-odds-that-children-earn-more-than-their-parents/?tid=pm_business_pop&utm_term=.c10198080490


American Dream collapsing for young adults, study says, as odds plunge that children will earn more than their parents
By Jim Tankersley

December 8 at 11:48 AM 

Rising income inequality has eroded the ability for American children to grow up to earn more than their parents, according to a new study from a team of researchers that could carry deep implications for President-elect Donald Trump's policy agenda.

The research from a group led by Stanford's Raj Chetty, and also including economists and sociologists from Harvard and the University of California at Berkeley, estimates that only half the children born in the 1980s grew up to earn more than their parents did, after adjusting for inflation. That's a drop from 92 percent of children born in 1940. The fall-off is particularly steep among children born in the middle class, and for those born in several states in the industrial Midwest.
(snip)

Previously, Chetty's team studied a different measure of mobility: the ability of children to move up or down America's income ladder as they grow up, when compared to other Americans. The new research attempts, for the first time, to quantify so-called "absolute mobility," which people often associate with the American Dream: the odds of a child earning more as an adult than his or her parents earned at the same age.

The researchers say rising concentration of income among the richest Americans explains 70 percent of what has been a steady decline in absolute mobility from the baby boom generation to millennials, while a slowdown in economic growth explains just 30 percent.
(snip)

It finds barely 2 in 5 men born in the mid-80s grew up to earn as much, at age 30, as their father's did at the same age. It shows average rates of mobility falling particularly fast in Rust Belt states, most notably Michigan and Indiana. And it finds a much steeper drop in absolute mobility for the middle class than for the poor. (Other research suggests what young people earn early in their careers is a good indication of how much their earnings might grow over their lifetimes.)

The calculations come from a novel approach by the authors to marry data from anonymous tax records and detailed statistics on the distribution of income in the United States from the Census. Using those sources, the authors estimate the chances that a particular child will grow up to earn more than her or his parents.
(snip)

[pnwmom]

3. That wasn't Hillary's slogan. She talked AT LENGTH about all the work we

still needed to do -- together.

Unfortunately, some young people gave up after Bernie conceded. That was a huge mistake. It's too bad Bernie spent all of August and most of September writing his book. By the time he started campaigning in October, a lot of his young supporters were back in college and not paying attention.

[pnwmom]

5. Hillary did a lot of campaigning in August. And unfortunately, she also had to

raise money because the Supreme Court has allowed unlimited expenditures and we can't handicap ourselves compared to the other side.

[ehrnst]

6. Yeah, those confederate flags and swastikas were ALL about wage inequity.

Please tell me what strategy would have been effective against that.

And she's up by 2.7 million votes now. They just weren't all white people.

People of color have lived the reality of stagnating wages and lack of opportunity for a century.

You are in danger of being tombstoned with how many posts you've had removed.

[leftofcool]

8. I really hate to wake up to Hillary and Obama bashing so I am going to be nice

Why are you on Democratic Underground? Obama is a Democrat. Hillary is a Democrat and this is Democratic Underground. If you don't like Democrats, please find somewhere else to play.

[Dems to Win]

11. Thank you for being nice, I'll remove my post

I'll confine my criticism to the Post Mortem group. I dodn't look closely to see the group I'm in

[ehrnst]

7. And creating his superpac, and his brand, and trying to keep his staff from jumping ship. (nt)

[yuiyoshida]

2. Its dead already

and the New Year hasn't started yet.

[Fast Walker 52]

9. part of this is just natural demographics and geopolitical power shifts

and not so much politics, per se. Of course there is a political dimension, but it was always going to be hard ot maintain our elites status in the world.

From 1945-1980 or so, we ruled the world after WWII, and our economy boomed. That was unsustainable.

[ehrnst]

10. Women and POC were shut out of those high paying jobs

Which helped the white working class male get and keep those jobs.

Which is the demographic that is now unhappy that women and POC are voicing their "identity politics."

[cpmx2006]

12. Income Inequality..

Income inequality was already bad enough but with the manic and Rethugs running everything it will be on steroids now..

[Fast Walker 52]

13. that's part of the demographics, yes

[sab390]

14. My Daughter

I struggled to get my daughter the same education I had. When I went the State paid $12 dollars for every one in tuition. Now it is less than three. I paid $154 dollars a semester. I paid over $5000 for her. Now she is a 1st grade teacher making less than the cost of her education. What about my grandchildren? This is all down hill.