Economic mobility in the US lower than elsewhere

I have blogged about this before, but here's some new evidence to support my earlier remarks. Economic mobility in the US from poor to rich is among the lowest in the developed world. We like to think of America as the place that the hard worker can rise from the ashes to become wealthy. Think again:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - America may still think of itself as the land of opportunity, but the chances of living a rags-to-riches life are a lot lower than elsewhere in the world, according to a new study published on Wednesday.

The likelihood that a child born into a poor family will make it into the top five percent is just one percent, according to "Understanding Mobility in America", a study by economist Tom Hertz from American University.

By contrast, a child born rich had a 22 percent chance of being rich as an adult, he said.

"In other words, the chances of getting rich are about 20 times higher if you are born rich than if you are born in a low-income family," he told an audience at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think-tank sponsoring the work.

He also found the United States had one of the lowest levels of inter-generational mobility in the wealthy world, on a par with Britain but way behind most of Europe.

"Consider a rich and poor family in the United States and a similar pair of families in Denmark, and ask how much of the difference in the parents' incomes would be transmitted, on average, to their grandchildren," Hertz said.

"In the United States this would be 22 percent; in Denmark it would be two percent," he said.

Am I trying to bash America with this? No. Do I hate America? No. I love my country. But, I also love the myths about my country -- land of the free, home of the brave, the place where the streets are paved with gold and any immigrant can come here and make it big if they just try. Yes, I know some who have, but the vast majority don't. And, we have no useful safety net for those who don't. Why not? Because of the assholes who think that God endowed the rich with greater gifts than the poor. They happen to be Republicans.

It's called "social Darwinism," and it happens to dovetail with Hitler's Nazism. Those who have made it, have made it because they are SUPERIOR BEINGS. Those who are poor are poor because they are INFERIOR BEINGS. That's the Rethuglican message. They're doing it now with the immigrants because it isn't in vogue to do it with the blacks. It's disgusting, and I don't want to come within touching distance of their nutball theory.

It's high time we found another way to conduct discourse in this country.