Rags to Riches? Not Here

by Donna Jablonski, Apr 27, 2006

In America, poor children can pull themselves up by the bootstraps and morph into wealth, right?

Wrong.

A child born poor here has just a 1 percent chance of ever making it to the top 5 percent of the economic ladder, Reuters reports, citing Understanding Mobility in America, a study by economist Tom Hertz from American University.

Race remains a major factor in the ability to move from poverty. Sixty-three percent of poor African American families stay poor, compared with 32 percent of poor white families. Only 3 percent of African Americans in the bottom quarter of the income scale make it to the top quarter, compared with 14 percent of whites. Racial disparities hold even when factors such as family background are removed from the equation.

The study, sponsored by the Center for American Progress, uses data that track income changes for more than 4,000 people who were children in 1968. It concludes that children are much more likely to grow up into their parents’ income bracket in the United States than in other wealthy countries, except for the United Kingdom. Access to quality education and higher ed is the most important factor in enabling people to move up the income scale.

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