Wednesday, June 25, 2003

Kevin Drum has a good post showing that since the 1970s not only have the rich got much richer than the poor (and indeed the middle class) but that income mobility -- defined as the chance of moving from one income 5th to another -- has declined.

Of course one of the great myths of America is its income mobility. Many studies show that European countries, and whisper it softly, the social democratic ones, have more income mobility than the US. Of course being British I can't crow too much -- I posted recently showing that of all the developed countries the UK comes very near the bottom for median income, i.e. our desperately poor income distribution is not offset by a high total income.

posted by Matthew @ 6/25/2003 05:04:00 PM Comments: 0