>Mobility is increasing.
>In the US
Did you mean to say nobility?
>BRANCACCIO: Give us a sense of where we are, with our working lives.
>Here, now, in the 21st Century. There are challenges of the low-wage
>work. But what about, you know, with some new skills, some
>education, maybe those workers can lift themselves up into the
>middle class? Or maybe their children could.
>
>HENWOOD: Well, if they're lucky. But the record of upward mobility
>in the United States is not anywhere near as happy as a lot of
>people would like to think. Most people stay roughly in the income
>category they were born into. That their parents occupied.
>
>And the United States isn't particularly mobile compared to other
>countries. We think of this as the great land of upward mobility,
>but that's really not that much more mobile in either direction than
>western Europe. And we also have a very, very large low-wage
>workforce. About the largest in the northern hemisphere.
>
>And also people don't exit from that very quickly. They just sort of
>stay there for much of their working lives. It's not really a point
>of entry into the labor market. But for most people where they're
>going to have a long-term residence.
>
>BRANCACCIO: I mean, surely we all know people who grew up in poverty
>and moved on to middle class and beyond. But you're saying that
>actually this isn't representative? Or it's just not as true as we
>think it is?
>
>HENWOOD: It's not as true as we think it is. And if people move,
>they move a notch. They don't move four or five notches up the ladder.
>
>And this has been true for many, many decades. But, you know, we
>have the widest distribution of rich and poor in the developed
>world. And surprisingly the smallest middle income category in the
>developed world. Which is of course exactly the opposite of what
>most Americans would think.
http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_henwood.html