So do hundreds of millions of Americans, which is why the statistics are surprising. But having hope doesn’t make it happen. This is partly why it’s important to understand the reality of US social mobility.
And yet they come and succeed. Their educated children move up to the middle class. The article you linked is an opinion piece of a single economist, who is critical of immigration.
If human ability follows normal distribution, there is a hard physical limit of how many people can move up the ladder each year. It physically impossible for every one to be at the same highest level. The good news is all level are getting higher year by year. The pie is growing for everybody.
That’s what 20% social mobility means: that one in five actually move classes. The majority of immigrants do not change classes, just like the majority of Americans do not change classes. It’s still possible, it’s just not the average outcome.
> The article you linked in an opinion pieces of a single economist, who is critical of immigration.
What article? I linked to a section of Wikipedia, and that section alone has 9 different citations by as many authors.
> The good news is all level are getting higher year by year. The pie is growing for everybody.
Others in this thread have misunderstood my remarks as you have. The metric of moving from one class quintile to another during your lifetime is relative. It does not depend on standard of living at all. The pie can grow, and social mobility (as defined by changing class quintiles) can be stagnant, at the same time.
