Afternoon Must-Read: Matt O’Brien: Why Is the American Dream Dead in the South?

Matt O’Brien: Why Is the American Dream Dead in the South?: “The top 1 percent aren’t killing the American Dream. Something else is–if you live in the wrong place….

The good news is that people at the bottom are just as likely to move up the income ladder today as they were 50 years ago. But the bad news is that people at the bottom are just as likely to move up the income ladder today as they were 50 years ago. We like to tell ourselves that America is the land of opportunity, but the reality doesn’t match the rhetoric—-and hasn’t for awhile. We actually have less social mobility than countries like Denmark…. [And] even though mobility hasn’t gotten worse lately, it has worse consequences today because inequality is worse. But it’s a little deceiving to talk about ‘our’ mobility rate. There isn’t one or two or even three Americas…. Raj Chetty, Nathaniel Herndon, Patrick Kline, and Emmanuel Saez…. Kids born into the bottom 20 percent of households, for example, have a 12.9 percent chance of reaching the top 20 percent if they live in San Jose…. But kids born in Charlotte only have a 4.4 percent chance of moving from the bottom to the top 20 percent. That’s worse than any developed country…. So what makes northern California different from North Carolina? Well, we don’t know for sure….

But here’s what we know does matter. Just how much isn’t clear. 1. Race…. But this isn’t actually a black-white issue. It’s a rich-poor one…. 2. Segregation. Something like the poor being isolated…. 3. Social Capital. Living around the middle class doesn’t just bring better jobs and schools (which help, but probably aren’t enough). It brings better institutions too…. 4. Inequality… does matter within the bottom 99 percent…. Family Structure…. The cliché is true: Kids do best in stable, two-parent homes….

Flat mobility is the defining Rorschach test of our time. Conservatives look at it, and say, see, we shouldn’t worry about the top 1 percent, because they’re not making the American Dream any harder to achieve. But liberals look at it, and say see, we should care about inequality, because it can make the American Dream harder to achieve….

The American Dream is alive in Denmark and Finland and Sweden. And in San Jose and Salt Lake City and Pittsburgh. But it’s dead in Atlanta and Raleigh and Charlotte. And in Indianapolis and Detroit and Jacksonville. Fixing that isn’t just about redistribution. It’s about building denser cities, so the poor aren’t so segregated. About good schools that you don’t have to live in the right (and expensive) neighborhood to attend. And about ending a destructive drug war that imprisons and blights the job prospects of far too many non-violent offenders—further shrinking the pool of “marriageable” men.

Because the American Dream is dead in too much of America.