WASHINGTON (AP) — Young Americans from low-income families are as likely to move into the ranks of the affluent today as those born in the 1970s, according to a report by several top academic experts on inequality. ADVERTISING WASHINGTON (AP)
WASHINGTON (AP) — Young Americans from low-income families are as likely to move into the ranks of the affluent today as those born in the 1970s, according to a report by several top academic experts on inequality.
The study, published this week by the National Bureau of Economic Research, counters the widespread thought a widening gap between rich and poor has made it harder to climb the economic ladder.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike expressed alarm about what was seen as diminishing opportunities for economic advancement through hard work and ingenuity.
Instead, the study found 9 percent of children born in 1986 to the poorest 20 percent of households were likely to climb into the top 20 percent — little-changed from 8.4 percent for such children born in 1971.
“Absolutely, we were surprised” by the results, said Harvard University economist Nathaniel Hendren. He is one of the report’s authors along with Harvard’s Raj Chetty, Emmanuel Saez and Patrick Kline, of the University of California, Berkeley, and Nicholas Turner, of the Treasury Department.
Worries have grown across the political spectrum about an expanding divide between America’s rich and the rest. But the fact the top 1 percent are pulling away had little effect on the ability of those in the bottom fifth to rise to the top fifth, the study found.
