Downward Mobility: One Third of Children Fall Out of the Middle Class As Adults

[FayeforCure]

CONTACT: SAMANTHA LASKY, Communicat ions
202-540-6390 | slasky@pewt rusts.org
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
September 6, 2011
Pew Finds Many Children Fall Out of the Middle Class As Adults

Education and Family Background Among Factors That Impact Children’s Future Status

WASHINGTONâ€"A middle-class upbringing does not guarantee the same status as an adult, according to a new report by Pew’s Economic Mobility Project. Downward Mobility from the Middle Class: Waking Up from the American Dream considers potential factors that cause a third of Americans who grow up in the middle â€" defined as those between the 30th and 70th percentiles of the income distribution â€" to fall out of the middle as adults.

“A variety of factors, including family background and personal choices, influence downward mobility from the middle class,” said Erin Currier, project manager of the Economic Mobility Project. “This report provides valuable information for policy makers who want to ensure that every child has the opportunity to achieve the American Dream.”

The report measures downward mobility among black, white and Hispanic men and women raised in the middle class in three ways: the percent who fall out of the middle class, the percent who fall 20 or more percentiles below their parents’ rank in the income distribution, and the percent whose income is 20 or more percent below their parents’. Across the three measures, the report finds: Those who are divorced, widowed or separated are more likely to fall down the economic ladder than those who are married. If men and women raised in a middle-class home obtain education after high school, they are less likely to be downwardly mobile. Low scores on the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) correlate with downward mobility.

The report also finds a gender gap in downward mobility, but it is driven entirely by a disparity between white men and white women. Thirty percent of white women fall out of the middle class, but only 21 percent of white men do.
Additionally, race is a factor in who falls out of the middle class, but only for men. The report finds that: Thirty-eight percent of black men fall out of the middle, compared to 21 percent of white men. In contrast, white, black and Hispanic women are equally likely to drop out of the middle class. Differences in average AFQT test scores are the most important observable factor (of those considered in this report) that account for the large downward mobility gap between black men and white men.

Methodology: This report draws from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (NLSY) 1979 cohort, focusing on youth who were age 14-17 in 1979 and who lived in their parents’ homes in 1979 and 1980. Their economic status was then assessed in 2004 and 2006, when they were between the ages of 39 and 44.

For the complete report and more information, please visit www.economicmobility.org.

By forging a broad and nonpartisan agreement on the facts, figures and trends related to mobility, the Economic Mobility Project is generating an active policy debate about how best to improve economic opportunity in the United States and to ensure that the American Dream is kept alive for generations that follow.

For more information, visit www.economicmobility.org.

The Pew Charitable Trusts' economic policy work aims to encourage an informed debate and promote practices that strengthen the U.S. economy. Pew is a nonprofit organization that applies a rigorous, analytical approach to improve public policy, inform the public and stimulate civic life.
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[Dog Walker]

This is nothing new, but has probably always been happening.  I've watched childhood friends, who all started out middle-class as I did, fall into "working-poor" or worse.  IQ doesn't seem to matter.  A high school friend of mine who is really brilliant, writes poetry and philosophical analysis never completed college has drifted from one dead-end job to another.  His last was as a clerk at Blockbusters so now he is having to survive on Social Security.  He is just bone lazy.

Another was the child of privilege whose father was president of a Fortune Five Hundred Corporation.  He ended up homeless because he was so spoiled that he could never hold a job or take direction from anyone.  His up-from-poverty father finally refused to support him anymore and disinherited him.

There is an old saying, "In America it's shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generation."  First generation immigrant parents start with a pushcart, open a small store, live over the store and drive their children to succeed in their education and put them to work on the weekends.  Children become doctors, lawyers, stockbrokers; become wealthy and indulge their own children because they don't want them to have the same hard childhood that they did.  Children become spoiled, drift along, squander their educational opportunities and end up as clerks in the grocery store.

In the '80's and '90's most the the valedictorians in California high schools were the children of Vietnamese refugees.  I wonder how the grandchildren will do? 

[BridgeTroll]

Faye... below is what you should have bolded...

Across the three measures, the report finds: Those who are divorced, widowed or separated are more likely to fall down the economic ladder than those who are married. If men and women raised in a middle-class home obtain education after high school, they are less likely to be downwardly mobile. Low scores on the Armed Forces Qualification Test (AFQT) correlate with downward mobility.

[simms3]

I think America is a country where it is possible to move up, and move down.  And I think that's great.  I think environment and outside factors play a role, but I also think our own personal choices impact our own lives in this country more than almost if not any other country on earth, and that to me is important (I'm biased, though, because I tend to make good choices for myself ).