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How Will We Know? The Case for Opportunity Indicators
Chapter

How Will We Know? The Case for Opportunity Indicators

Richard V. Reeves
In: The Dynamics of Opportunity in America
Brookings Institution, 2016

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8

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  • Innovative

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While the United States often bills itself as “the land of opportunity,” the metrics for laying claim to that coveted title are often muddled and murky. Even as politicians remain behind battle lines on critical issues, almost all of them agree that upward income mobility has stalled. At one time, Americans could reasonably expect to achieve a better economic status than the one into which they were born. That’s no longer necessarily so. Writer Richard V. Reeves explores the ways government can use available data to measure income progress while aiming at specific opportunity targets. getAbstract recommends this thought-provoking paper to social scientists, economists and government decision makers interested in gauging social and economic mobility.

Take-Aways

  • Some 84% of American adults earn more than their parents did, and for individuals raised in the lowest income quintile, that number rises to 93%.
  • But income mobility is much more subdued when gauging progression from one earnings group to another. In the United States, people tend to stay within the same income quintile as their parents, especially at the top and bottom rungs.
  • Dropping out of high school is a predictor of static or downward mobility at all income levels. Race also affects economic progress; “only 3% of black children rise to the top income quintile” as adults.

About the Author

Richard V. Reeves is a writer and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

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