Comment by ansy | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ansy | Hacker News Reader

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I actually think you're wrong with regard to the rich getting richer not being the same people from year to year, at least for the majority of rich Americans. Yes, movement is possible, but most of this happens between the upper and lower middle class. At extreme ends of the economic spectrum this mobility is severely diminished. Even across generations. This study is focused across generations, and shows that adult children of parents in the top 20% are 39% likely to be in the top 20%. Likewise adult children of people in the bottom 20% are 42% likely to be in the bottom 20% [1].

It stands to reason, then, that if the children of top earners are likely to stay in that income bracket, that people in the top income bracket are also likely to stay there.

Notice that the top 4% mentioned in this article fit quite comfortably in the top 20% of income earners. And through extrapolation, I imagine that the movement among the top 4% is even more severely diminished. It would be truly exceptional for even the child of someone in the top 4% to find themselves in poverty or for that matter the middle class.

[1] http://www.economicmobility.org/assets/pdfs/EMP_Across_Gener... (PDF! page 5)

So to put it another way the study says that 61% of children born to parents in the top 20% fall out of it, and 58% of children born into poverty rise out of it. Sounds like pretty good numbers to me.

For people unable to look at the source, here is a direct copy of the chart in question:

http://i.imgur.com/DV5JZ.png

As you should see, it's not really that simple to say "39% stay and 61% fall out." While technically correct, falling isn't equally distributed over the other quintiles. The children of the top quintile are only 9% likely to fall in the bottom quintile and the children of the bottom quintile are only 6% likely to rise to the top quintile.

And really, the top comment was trying to claim the parents migrated income brackets. The numbers here are about children inheriting the incomes of their parents. This data strongly suggests the wealth gains over the past decade are in fact concentrated in the already wealthy. Not only that, but it shows the concentration of wealth has momentum that lasts for generations.

The United States today still has tremendous opportunity for income mobility compared to many other parts of the world and other parts of history. But these articles are showing a disturbing trend that this may not be sustainable.

Children learn most of their behavior from their parents, 58% of poor children performing better than their parents sounds like a good number when you look at it that way.

I only said there was a 58% chance they'd rise out of poverty, by which I meant they'd rise out of the bottom quintile. I think that being born dirt poor, and moving into not dirt poor is a very good goal for the majority of people.

Also 6% of people born into poverty eventually make it to the top quintile, that's higher than I would have expected.

We shouldn't pretend that wealth doesn't give huge natural advantages, but we also shouldn't pretend that we are going to be able to eliminate those advantages without eliminating wealth.

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