first dead idea is what I call the kids will learn more than we do. And by that I refer to the classic American dream of upward mobility . It's basically been knit into the fabric of American society that the next generation will always dobetter than this generation. It's what our founders believed. It's what uh it's what the kind of icons of our country.
One thing I'd like to point out on that is that one of the first explanations that might come to your mind is maybe differences in upward mobility across places are driven by differences in the types of jobs that people have access to, or things like developments in technology, and so forth.
So one thing I should note, just as a side note, as you pointed out, even within a given area, there are really sharp differences in rates of upward mobility between blacks and whites-- and in particular, between black men and white men. If you look at black women versus white women, you see very similar outcomes.
All right? So what is driving this variation across places? Why does upward mobility differ so much across areas? So I'm going to show you a couple of results on that.
And take a set of families that move from the Central District to Normandy Park, which was in a much bluer color on the map-- higher rates of upward mobility for kids who grew up there from birth. So imagine now, set of families that move between these two places, with kids of different ages, starting with families who move when their child is exactly
Everyone should have a shot at the American dream, no matter what their background is. But improving opportunities for upward mobility , I think it's important to keep in mind, can also be important simply for increasing economic growth. And so to illustrate that, I want to show you one final piece of data which focuses on a specific pathway to upward mobility
Could you imagine if you don't live up to your potential? And there was no upward mobility .
And my mom, she worked cleaning houses. So there was no real opportunity for upward mobility for us. And it was like that for years.
Now, in this big map, your eye naturally gravitates to the broad regional variation. Places like the Midwest look better for upward mobility than the southeast, or places in the industrial Midwest-- like Cleveland, and so forth. But what is striking, and what we've been focusing on more recently in work that we released a couple of months ago,
for you in American life and an even better place for your children. It was the dream of upward mobility and equal opportunity. And although that dream was never true for all Americans, the circle of inclusion widened to include more and more of us.
It leads many to reconsider whether they want to have children. This idea that we organize our lives around consumption and upward mobility is really appealing far less to the younger generation. So that's one reason why the dream doesn't work.
We follow those kids into adulthood and ask, how much do the kids who grew up in each of these places earn, on average, in adulthood? So think of this as a way of measuring how upward mobility varies across areas in the United States. And so the map is colored such that blue areas, like in the center of the country, represent areas with higher levels of upward mobility ,
And so the map is colored such that blue areas, like in the center of the country, represent areas with higher levels of upward mobility , and red colors represent areas with lower levels of upward mobility . So start by just looking at the scale in the lower right.
And I'm going to focus on a different example, here in Seattle, where we're doing a bunch of work. Where this is showing you the same kind of map of upward mobility in Seattle, you see a similar pattern of a very broad spectrum of colors, going from red and the center of the city to much greener colors in places like Normandy Park, south of the city.
And then finally, as you might expect intuitively, places with better schools-- both at the K through 12 level, and access to high quality higher education-- tend to have higher levels of upward mobility . So this gives you some sense of the types of areas I think we should be focusing on.
don't have that kind of person and you're raising not only that problem but an even bigger problem and being the hope of the world in terms of upward mobility and on top of that
I used to live in Hayes Valley, and I was obsessed with the proxy project, which turned out, after I got to And essentially that mixture creates this amazing cut opportunity for upward mobility , this concept that
Kids starting out in families earning $25,000 a year are, on average, ending up earning about $45,000 a year. So there's a very broad spectrum in terms of rates of upward mobility within the United States. That aggregate national picture that I started out with really is driven by a great heterogeneity across areas.
So I'm going to show you a couple of results on that. The first point I want to make is that most of the variation in upward mobility that we're seeing across these areas is caused by differences in childhood environment.
Of course, education is an intrinsic right, and it feels very obvious to say, but it lays an absolutely vital foundation for our lives. So what we see with more education is that women have higher wages and better upward mobility , maternal and infant mortality go down, rates of HIV, AIDS, and malaria go down.
And recent randomized controlled trials show that direct cash transfers-- that is, cash without any strings attached-- has more impact on poverty and livelihoods. So how does Telenor Bank ensure that micro loans are impactful in upward mobility and breaking out of the poverty cycle for the communities? I thought this was going to be an easy interview.
moving up at the same rate as other folks. Are there any companies that you notice through your research that are really good at promoting upward mobility for people of color? The company in Boston that I think does it best is Eastern Bank.
So how does that add up? How can you both have very high job and wage growth, and have very low upward mobility ? So what's happening in places like Charlotte, or Atlanta, or a number of other high-growth cities is that they basically import talent.
So environment matters throughout childhood, not just in the very earliest years. So how can you use these types of data to actually create policy change to increase upward mobility ? So given what I've just been showing you here, one thought that might come to your mind is, what if we help low income families move
You can do this, maybe, for a couple of million families, but you can't move everyone. So the deeper question is, how can you improve upward mobility in the places that currently have low levels of upward mobility ? And so that's what our research agenda is centrally focused on now, and in the coming years.
We have a large-scale vocational program also for children who are academically not that bright, but that also ensures a career, which also has an upward mobility possibility through skilled programs. In India these days, actually, a huge amount of thing is being done in the skill space, which was not the case a few years back.
They're the most liberated. And when I think about that, I think about the incredible upward mobility that's afforded to people and to families by being able to go from working just
But when I hear some people it tech talking about, well, cash value is overrated. And I think it is especially prevalent in times when people feel the normal channels of upward mobility have been
Yeah. I'm thinking about what you said about how younger generations are increasingly rejecting this idea of the American Dream. Can you share with us how is Gen Z, specifically, leading the way in fighting for the future and promoting inclusion over upward mobility ? And how can we, as non-Gen Zers, follow in their footsteps?
In particular, the lowest center of the middle class was shrinking. So people from the former working class who had experienced in their lives and the lives of their parents a slow, upward mobility , they have new problems now.
Great questions. I actually have one more question. Yes, please. Do you find that there's any particular-- whether it be finance or another industry or company that's really skilled at upward mobility for people of color? It's something we talk about all the time.
The first, which will be very familiar to all of you here, is that we try to harness large data sets, typically structured data coming from government data sources-- census data, tax data, things like that-- in order to study how to increase upward mobility . And I think this is really a special moment in social science where, much as you all are using data in your work to improve the products that people have
we really try to hone in on specific geographic areas or specific subgroups, to try to understand what the drivers of inequality and opportunity are. And so the starting point for what I'm going to talk about today is that there are very sharp local differences in rates of upward mobility that I think should shape how we think about the broader problem of the fading American dream.
So think of this as a way of measuring how upward mobility varies across areas in the United States. And so the map is colored such that blue areas, like in the center of the country, represent areas with higher levels of upward mobility , and red colors represent areas with lower levels of upward mobility .
Now naturally, the question of interest to us as academics, and to policymakers, is to ask what is driving this variation across areas. And what, ultimately, might we be able to do to increase upward mobility in places, or for subgroups, where we currently have less economic opportunity. One thing I'd like to point out on that is that one of the first explanations that might come to your mind is maybe differences
States. It's had one of the highest rates of job growth over the past 20 or 25 years. Yet, as you can see here, Charlotte is one of the places in America with the very lowest levels of upward mobility , among big cities, for the kids who grow up there.
see the same spectrum of colors that I showed you at the national level. Right? So you can go from a place that looks like Alabama or Charlotte, in terms of rates of upward mobility , to a place that looks like Iowa, within a few miles within the Bay Area.
Now some of the broad patterns here will strike you as intuitive. So you see, for instance, that the peninsula, much of San Francisco, has higher rates of upward mobility than parts of the East Bay-- in particular, Oakland. Right? But let me now zoom in further to discuss this variation in a little bit more detail.
But improving opportunities for upward mobility , I think it's important to keep in mind, can also be important simply for increasing economic growth. And so to illustrate that, I want to show you one final piece of data which focuses on a specific pathway to upward mobility that's very relevant here in Silicon Valley, which is innovation.
There's a very famous Peruvian economist named Hernando de Soto, who says the biggest barrier to upward mobility is not actually
But friendship isn't the only type of social network. How we get jobs, how diseases spread, how websites become popular, and how people attain upward mobility are all determined
better than this generation. It's what our founders believed. It's what uh it's what the kind of icons of our country. Benjamin Franklin, Abraham Lincoln were, you know, emblems, poster boys of upward mobility . Uh in our literature, Horatio Alger novels in the 19th century to Jay Gatsby, you know, in the 20th century.