Creaky wagons wheeling along the Oregon Trail, eager immigrants shuffling through Ellis Island, and penniless kids studying their way out of poverty — these images cycle through the popular imagination when the American dream comes to mind. That lofty phrase suggests that every
American will receive agency over their social and material condition. Yet few claim that America has realized such a reality. Poverty and inequity still murk about in this country, and social origin remains a strong approximation of social fate. If we fail to act, this status quo is unlikely to improve.
Harvard researcher Raj Chetty has made this clear. One of his studies found that, in 1970, 92% of American 30-year-olds earned more than their parents did at a similar age. In 2010, that percentage fell to 50%. Part of this may be due to the Great Depression and the post-World War II economic boom, but the implications remain alarming. A stratified society both limits the capabilities and aspirations of its people and fosters a centralized, corrupt political system. So, what is to be done?
Many today hope to find solutions from the experiments of governments abroad, such as the “Nordic model” of Scandinavian social democracy. Others may find solace in history, claiming we can replicate the norms, laws and political circumstances of more mobile eras. But Chetty’s research has actually thrown another wrinkle into the equation, one that may point us in a more local direction.
As it turns out, although social mobility has declined in America, the extent of that slip varies greatly by location. For instance, using millions of tax records, Chetty and his team found that poor children are four times more likely to become wealthy if they live in San Jose instead of Charlotte. These cities are not alone in this regard; Chetty mapped the entire country, finding wide variance in mobility outcomes. Income alone can be a shallow metric for mobility, so the team packaged stats such as incarceration rates and education outcomes into the study, ultimately finding similar results. Strikingly, it proved to be highly granular, with considerable mobility differences between neighborhoods in the same city.
Chetty’s work has revealed a dimension of the debate that has long been obscured. It also gives grounds for optimism; it’s easier to replicate the successes of a bordering neighborhood than those of a different country. Chetty proposed several plausible causes behind social mobility variance. Mobile communities tend to have less residential segregation, stronger community networks and more stable families, while immobile communities have an amplified “friending bias,” meaning social classes stick to themselves. Policymakers and local leaders, then, should promote cross-class friendship in schools and similar public spaces.
Some initiatives that attempt to do this include mixed-income housing and education detracking, or the process of reversing the separation of school students into groups based on their academic skills. Regardless of the exact methods and theories, there must be real, instructive causes behind the social mobility differences. Further research and experimentation could give us practical guidance toward making the American Dream a little more lucid.
