Publisher's Note: One of the most significant things you can do to promote Liberty is to support our mission. Please make your gift to the 2024 Year-End Campaign today. Thank you! —Mark Alexander, Publisher

January 27, 2014

Study: Income Mobility Is Stable

Harvard study contradicts the Democrat line that it’s getting harder to climb the ladder.

“Income inequality” is going to be Barack Obama’s tired refrain in 2014, as he and his fellow Democrats ramp up their midterm election campaign. It will no doubt be the focus of Tuesday’s State of the Union address. However, a recent study from Harvard shows that income mobility has remained stable – perhaps even improved slightly – over the last 50 years. The study’s authors found that “the probability that a child reaches the top fifth of the income distribution given parents in the bottom fifth of the income distribution is 8.4% for children born in 1971, compared with 9.0% for those born in 1986.” But that won’t stop the Left’s narrative or change the fact that leftist policies produce the very “income inequality” they decry.

Still, writes the Heritage Foundation’s Donald Schneider, “just because the rates of mobility haven’t declined doesn’t mean we should be happy with them – nor is it an indicator that all is well. In terms of our ability to lift people out of poverty and into the middle class and beyond, our rates of upward mobility are still insufficient. The sad truth is that 70% of poor Americans fail to reach the middle class.”

People can do three main things to help their opportunity for advancement: graduate from high school, marry before having children and hold down a job. Unfortunately, marrying before having children is going by the wayside because of cultural degradation over the same 50-year period that the Harvard study covers, and getting a job has become increasingly difficult in the Obama “recovery.” Transferring income from the haves to the have-nots is not the solution to the lack of mobility as Democrats would have us believe. But we fully expect to hear plenty of that in Tuesday’s State of the Union Address.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the Tunnel to Towers Foundation, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.