The myth of social mobility in the United States is a powerful one. From dimestore 'Rags-to-Richs' novels of the 1920s to the venture-captial heroes of the Information Age, America has always had the image of itself as the 'Land of Opportunity'.
For a time, that was true. People fled Europe in the millions for a better life in America. Now, social mobility by some measures is actually greater in continental Europe.
A recent study by Tom Hertz from American University notes that social mobility is largely a myth.
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.
International Comparison:
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.
Causes:
Hertz examined channels transmitting income across generations and identified education as the single largest factor, explaining 30 percent of the income-correlation, in an argument to boost public access to universities.
Breaking the survey down by race spotlighted this as the next most powerful force to explain why the poor stay poor.
On average, 47 percent of poor families remain poor. But within this, 32 percent of whites stay poor while the figure for blacks is 63 percent.
It works the other way as well, with only 3 percent of blacks making it from the bottom quarter of the income ladder to the top quarter, versus 14 percent of whites.
"Part of the reason mobility is so low in America is that race still makes a difference in economic life," he said.
Some figures from the study: