Many wonder is the American Dream dead? A better question would be, did the American dream ever exist? The American dream is the “ideal that every American citizen would have equal opportunity to achieve success, prosperity and upward mobility for the family and children through hard work” (“American Dream,” 2018). Social mobility is the ability for people to rise in social class, a social hierarchy created and maintained by society (“Upward Mobility”, 2018). Some would argue that the American dream is a myth, while others would argue it’s very much alive. By simply observing society, it’s evident that not every American citizen is provided equal opportunity for success, wealth and social mobility, but why? Author Raj Chetty, among other professionals, conducted research to explain why some children are more likely to escape poverty and obtain upward social mobility in some communities than in other communities. Their studies found that the location where an individual grows up has profound, long term effects on that individual’s life outcomes.
In a YouTube video created by Raj Chetty, he explains that in the U.S. social mobility today and in the past is much slower than many other developed countries and that’s partly due to America’s legacy of racial inequality. In the journal, The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility, by Harvard Professor of Economics, Raj Chetty and colleagues, they discussed the importance of neighborhoods in attaining upward social mobility. His study found that the community that a child grows up in is a determining factor of their life outcomes. The study suggest from its data that a child who moves to better neighborhood at a younger age is expected to improve economic mobility as opposed to a child that lived in a worse neighborhood. According to the study, it is believed that each year a child spends in a better environment will result in improved outcomes, this is called the childhood exposure effect (Chetty & Handren, 2015). This means that those who move to better environments tended to achieve higher levels of education and earn more income when they’re older, as opposed to their counterparts. This is called intergenerational mobility.
Chetty, among other researchers, suggest that location really does matter in determining like chances of an individual. According to the New York Times article “An Atlas of Upward Mobility Shows Path Out of Poverty” by David Leonhardt, Amanda Cox and Claire Miller, discusses how moving to better neighborhoods often resulted in increase opportunities. This article compares prior anti-poverty experiments to Chetty’s more current research. Previous anti-poverty initiatives gifted housing vouchers to random adults in hopes of presenting families with improved opportunities for for jobs and educational outcomes. This model failed as those who received the vouchers did not earn more and children did not do better in school.
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This article, supported by Chetty’s research, provides maps of mobility and the lack of it. The article, supported by Chetty’s evidence, states that “poor children who grow up in some cities and towns have sharpley better odds of escaping poverty than children elsewhere” (Leonhardt, Cox, Miller, 2015). Better housing environments meant higher rent prices and this is hard for individuals with families to afford. The article shows that the poor children face worse odds of overcoming poverty when growing up in the nation’s largest urban areas such as Los Angeles, CA., Atlanta, GA., Chicago, IL., and Austin, TX, which could ultimately determine their life outcomes (Leonhardt, Cox, Miller, 2015).
In this same study, it was revealed that race plays a significant role in education, housing policy, and mobilizing upward. Why do neighborhoods matter? Prior research states that race, a categorical system that groups humans on their physical characteristics, plays a large role in an individual’s overall life outcomes (“Race”, 2018). It’s important to acknowledge America’s racist history and how these historic effects of racism affects individuals social mobility to this day. Chetty and Handren revealed that urban low-income neighborhoods had worse odds of escaping poverty and found that many of these communities were predominantly African American. When observing America’s past laws and policies, many were found to be discriminatory towards minorities, particularly African Americans. They were denied housing services and discouraged from living in nicer communities. Using the lens of race, American history tells us a story of who gets their foot in the door. In other words, the historic effects of racism affect an individual’s ability to mobilize upward, escaping poverty. The effects of racism have and still to this day have an effect on people of color, particularly Hispanics and African Americans.
According to the academic journal, Stressing Out the Poor by Gary Evans, Jeanne Brooks-Gunn and Pamela Klebanov, researchers and studies suggest that exposure to early childhood poverty is harmful because it introduces children to stress which results in lower levels of educational and occupational attainment. This stress could even affect the skills that a child learns in educational settings. Poor children usually experience more family trauma than higher-income families introducing more stress into their lives that has long term effects such as affecting parts of the brain that help with long term memory, working memory and control. This study goes to prove that children from disadvantaged backgrounds often affected academica and occupation opportunities later in life.
Studies by Chetty state that there is more variation of upward mobility within the U.S. than across countries. According to Chetty, predictors of social mobility are determined by 5 factors: levels of segregation, income inequality, quality of public education, strength of social networks and family structure. I think the most important of those five are levels of segregation and quality of public education. The communities that tended to be more integrated showed higher levels of social mobility as opposed to more segregated locations. Segregated neighborhoods tend to be predominantly African American and Hispanic. In the past, American housing policies encouraged segregation 1954 that the Supreme Court repealed segregated schools across the nation (“Racial Segregation”, 2018).
According to How Schools Really Do Matter by Douglas Downey and Benjamin Gibbs, schools may be considered the main sources of opportunity for equality. Unfortunately, the quality of education children recieve around the nation varied drastically. Children with higher-income families in nicer neighborhoods are more likely to attend schools with better resources, test scores, professors, extracurricular activities, special education courses, etc., than lower income students (Downey and Gibbs, 2010). Low-income families often had not choice but to sent their children to worse schools due to property taxes determining the amount of funding and resources each school received. These students were less likely to graduate high school, attend college and receive well paying jobs. This becomes a vicious cycle that makes it almost impossible for low-income, communities of color to escape poverty and becoming middle class.
This problem of racial inequality and lack of social mobility for poorer, often communities of color has been an ongoing issue that needs to be addressed because there are children around the nation who are unable to receive quality education which in return has a rippling effect on economic outcomes later in life. I believe, stemming from Chetty’s research that changes in housing policies and educational reform is needed. According to Chetty, places with better odds of escaping poverty, have higher rent which is a large, financial stretch for many families in poverty. I think a program we could attempt to solve this issue would be to lower rent in better neighborhoods and making them more accessible to families with various low-income backgrounds would help increase their opportunity of upward mobility. This program would assist adults in getting their G.E.D, provide some grocery money and opportunities for jobs that would help lift these families out of poverty. Chetty’s study showed that locations with thriving upward mobility often had residential integration of families with differing socioeconomic backgrounds. I think housing policies also need to change.
For most of America’s history, property taxes in a community determine the amount of funding schools would receive and that still affects people today. I believe that lower-income communities should be funded more than well-off schools that receive donations and are able to fundraise. Funding would be used towards providing children with safe transportation, food programs, school supplies, better teachers and better opportunity for more advanced classes and after school programs to help working families. All of these factors would help educated more children, ensure they receive a higher education and would increase their odds of earning a stable income. Although this may not be feasible now, it’s important to consider such implementation to help build a brighter future of the children of America. The problem of stagnant mobility for lower-income families is extremely complex and will need to be researched thoroughly to help address the problem inequality in the United States.
Reference Page
- American Dream. (2018, December 07). Retrieved December 11, 2018, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream
- Bühler, P., Schlaich, P., & Sinner, D. (2018). PDF-Grundlagen. PDF Bibliothek Der Mediengestaltung, 2-11. doi:10.1007/978-3-662-54615-4_1
- Chetty, R., & Hendren, N. (2016). The Impacts of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility I: Childhood Exposure Effects. doi:10.3386/w23001
- Downey, D. B., & Gibbs, B. G. (2010). How Schools Really Matter. Contexts, 9(2), 50-54.doi:10.1525/ctx.2010.9.2.50
- Leonhardt, D., Cox, A., & Miller, C. C. (2015, May 04). An Atlas of Upward Mobility Shows Paths Out of Poverty. Retrieved December 12, 2018, from https://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/04/upshot/an-atlas-of-upward-mobility-shows-paths-oUt-of-poverty.html
- Race. (n.d.). Retrieved December 17, 2018, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/race
- Racial segregation in the United States. (2018, December 13). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_segregation_in_the_United_States
- Upward Mobility. (2018, November 21). Retrieved December 16, 2018, from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/upward mobility
