The American Mobility Project

The Economic Mobility Project is a unique nonpartisan collaboration of The Pew Charitable Trusts and respected thinkers from four leading policy institutes — The American Enterprise Institute, The Brookings Institution, The Heritage Foundation and The Urban Institute.

This research is very disturbing:

For more than two centuries, economic opportunity and upward mobility have
formed the foundation of the American Dream and remain at the core of our nation’s identity. But today, while there is widespread agreement that income inequality is higher than at any time since before World War II, too little attention has been given to the more fundamental and increasingly intriguing issue of economic mobility — the prospects for climbing up (or falling down) the economic ladder within and across generations.

Recent studies suggest that there is less economic mobility in the U.S. than researchers originally believed. And, in sharp contrast to the view of America as the land of opportunity, we may be a less mobile society than many other nations. This suggests that the time is right for a rigorous and nonpartisan initiative designed to spark an informed national discussion of the state of economic mobility in America.