Having read this paper as Mike Osborne recommended, I was left with doubts about both its methodology and its usefulness. To understand what has happened over the last 50 years in the US, land of "the American Dream" that many Americans in the past believed in and realized, the data of the Brookings 'Guide' are quite insufficient. The Brookings paper especially fails to provide data that would help to explain the reasons why the promise that everybody could rise above their parents' social position and income is no longer valid (or "inoperationable", as Nixon called it).

The authors of the 'model' concede that "the question of what promotes and impedes economic mobility is dauntingly complex", yet this complexity is not reflected in their model and - to be fair - cannot be with existing data. Especially the effects of various policies and specific policy interventions aiming at addressing the problem of growing inequality can be only superficially illustrated with national data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics Longitudinal Surveys and this is what the authors use.

Much more useful and convincing in its analysis and conclusions is another research report about the growing inequality in America, published shortly after the Brookings paper: 

Putnam, R. D. (2015). Our kids - The American dream in crisis. New York: Simon & Schuster.

This book by the Harvard sociologist, who wrote 'Bowling alone" some 15 years ago analyzing the social disengagement of Americans and their retreat to relative social isolation, is primarily based on some 110 in-depth interviews, paired comparisons of young people and their parents who come from different social backgrounds and who live in different parts of the country. The book is captivating both for its clear analysis but also for its style; some of the interview stories read as if they were written by the author of the 'Grapes of Wrath'. Different from the Brookings paper, Putnam shows the reasons for the decline in class mobility and also suggests how this development over the last 50 years can be addressed and reversed.

Of special interest (not just for Pascal members and sympathizers) is the role that Putnam accords to the community, i.e. social institutions and networks, neighborhoods, churches, sport clubs etc. Parents and schools are very important but cannot do it alone as young kids and adolescents need the support of the community. However, the strength and quality of this support system depends very much on the neighborhood where people live, and these neighborhoods are increasingly, as the interviews and descriptions of their context show, segregated according to social class and income.

Why should we who do not live in America worry about the erosion of the American dream? In many ways, Canada (where I live) is quite different from the US, for example with regard to universal health care, the quality of schools (not just the ones in rich districts), or the existence of a public broadcasting network. Yet under the present neo-liberal federal government that tries not just to emulate but out-flank George W. on various fronts (for example environmental and climate standards) Canada is slowly drifting into an unfettered free market system which puts into question many of the social policies and institutions that have defined Canada until now. The growing concentration of wealth in the hands of a small group and the concomitant rise of poverty (just reported by Statistics Canada) is an indication that social equality and social mobility is in peril in Canada as well. So, there is reason to worry that America is leading the way into a direction we do not want to go.