the Greater Nomadic Council

More on Income Mobility

In the Krugman article referenced earlier, he mentions, in passing, a report by the Heritage Foundation that claims "[the] U.S. economy is characterized by an extraordinary degree of income mobility," a conclusion Krugman finds misleading. This article also finds claims of mobility to be overstated. However, Americans for Tax Reform claim the reverse. Finally, Daniel Gross argues on Slate that the "rich have figured out how to use the federal government to help them stay that way." He links to a nicely detailed paper by two economists to support his argument.

Obviously there's a bit of contention on this issue, but from what I've been able to find, the more detailed and recent reports generally confirm that income mobility in the United States has decreased in the last decade and the gap between the upper and lower classes has increased. Has anyone come across any relatively detailed, recent reports that state otherwise?

UPDATE: I found a discussion on this topic over on Daniel Drezner's site. He also has a more recent article here, but unfortunately, it pretty much just relinks to those that I've already found.

Again, I'd like to point out that I feel the issue has less to do with income inequality--though that is admittedly important--than with income mobility, which the studies I've seen so far suggest that it has decreased.