July 28, 2025
The pathway to upward economic mobility for the next generation appears to be narrowing. What is the most effective blueprint or set of policies to ensure our children have a realistic opportunity to achieve a better standard of living?
A Blueprint for Renewal: A Multi-Pillar Strategy to Restore Upward Economic Mobility in America
Executive Summary
The foundational promise of the American Dream—that each generation will have the opportunity to achieve a higher standard of living than the last—is under profound threat. A confluence of economic and social forces has narrowed the pathways to upward mobility, leaving a growing number of families feeling that the rungs on the economic ladder are not only farther apart but also fixed in place by the circumstances of one’s birth. This report presents a comprehensive diagnosis of the state of economic mobility in the United States and puts forth an evidence-based, multi-pillar policy blueprint designed to restore opportunity for the next generation.
Our analysis begins by defining and measuring the challenge. We distinguish between absolute mobility, the ability of children to earn more than their parents, and relative mobility, their ability to move up or down the income distribution. The data reveals a dual crisis: absolute mobility has collapsed dramatically over the past half-century, with only half of children born in the 1980s out-earning their parents, compared to over 90% of those born in the 1940s. Simultaneously, relative mobility has remained stubbornly low, meaning a child’s economic destiny is still too closely tied to their parents’ income, particularly when compared to other developed nations. This erosion of opportunity is not uniform; a child’s zip code is a powerful predictor of their future success, revealing a fractured landscape of opportunity across the country.
The report identifies rising economic inequality as the central driver of this stagnation. As articulated by the “Great Gatsby Curve,” high levels of inequality are systematically linked to low levels of intergenerational mobility. Inequality creates both the means and the motive for affluent families to hoard opportunities, making massive investments in their children’s human capital that public systems fail to match. This dynamic exacerbates other determinants of mobility, including residential segregation by income and race, disparities in school quality, and unequal access to social capital and community resources. These barriers are compounded by persistent racial and gender disparities that limit opportunity for specific groups regardless of their starting income.
In response to this multifaceted challenge, this report proposes a comprehensive, four-pillar policy blueprint. This is not a menu of standalone options but an integrated strategy where each component reinforces the others to create a robust ecosystem of opportunity:
Pillar I: Building Human Capital from Birth. This pillar focuses on breaking the link between parental background and a child’s potential. It calls for foundational investments in universal high-quality early childhood education; equitable and adequate K-12 school funding that directs more resources to high-poverty districts; and creating clear pathways to prosperity through affordable higher education and modernized vocational training.
Pillar II: Ensuring Rewarding Work and Economic Security. A thriving economy must offer jobs that can support a family. This pillar advocates for policies that make work pay through a modern minimum wage and expanded tax credits; restore worker voice and bargaining power through labor law reform; and build a resilient workforce prepared for an automated future through lifelong learning and robust social safety nets.
Pillar III: Creating Opportunity-Rich Environments. A child’s environment profoundly shapes their life chances. This pillar proposes policies to dismantle residential segregation through zoning reform and enhanced housing choice vouchers, and to establish universal access to quality healthcare, recognizing health as a fundamental economic asset.
Pillar IV: Fostering Intergenerational Wealth and Reducing Disadvantage. To address the structural roots of inequality, this pillar recommends rebalancing the tax system through progressive income and wealth transfer taxation to fund public investments and limit the perpetuation of dynastic advantage. Critically, it proposes the creation of a universal, progressive “Baby Bonds” program—federally funded asset accounts established at birth—to provide a capital foundation for every child and directly attack the racial wealth gap at its source.
This blueprint represents a long-term, coordinated strategy. It acknowledges the political challenges of implementation and the need for careful design to avoid unintended consequences. By drawing lessons from successful international models and grounding its recommendations in rigorous evidence, this report offers a realistic and ambitious path forward to ensure that the promise of upward mobility is not a relic of the past but a tangible reality for the next generation of Americans.
Section 1: The Fading American Dream: Understanding and Measuring Economic Mobility
The concept of upward economic mobility is central to the American social contract, yet its meaning is often imprecise. A rigorous policy response requires a clear understanding of what mobility entails, how it is measured, and the empirical evidence for its decline. This section establishes the foundational concepts, presents the key metrics used by economists, and diagnoses the current state of mobility in the United States, revealing a dual crisis of stagnating opportunity and declining prosperity that varies starkly by geography.
1.1 Defining the Goal: Absolute vs. Relative Mobility
Economic mobility is not a monolithic concept. It is measured in two primary ways, each capturing a distinct and vital aspect of a society’s economic health: absolute mobility and relative mobility.¹
Absolute mobility addresses the question: “Is the next generation better off than the last?” It measures whether adults have higher inflation-adjusted incomes than their parents did at a comparable age.¹ This metric is a barometer of broad-based economic growth and rising living standards. When absolute mobility is high, it signifies a dynamic economy where a “rising tide” is, in fact, “lifting all boats”.³ For decades, this was the lived experience for the vast majority of Americans, underpinning the expectation that children would naturally achieve a more prosperous life than their parents.
Relative mobility, in contrast, addresses the question: “Does a person’s starting point in life determine their destination?” It measures the movement of individuals up or down the socioeconomic ladder compared to the position their parents occupied.² Relative mobility is a measure of the equality of opportunity. In a society with high relative mobility, a child’s future economic standing is largely independent of their parents’ income or social class. Conversely, in a society with low relative mobility, the advantages and disadvantages of one’s birth are highly persistent across generations, suggesting that the economic system is less meritocratic and more akin to a caste system.⁵ While absolute mobility is about the growth of the economic pie, relative mobility is about the fairness with which its slices are distributed and whether individuals have a realistic chance of moving from a smaller slice to a larger one.³
This distinction is critical for policy. A society can experience high absolute mobility alongside low relative mobility—a scenario where everyone is getting richer, but the children of the rich are still overwhelmingly likely to become the next generation’s rich. Conversely, a society could have high relative mobility but low absolute mobility—a zero-sum world where children frequently change places on the ladder, but the ladder itself is not ascending, meaning no one is getting better off in real terms.³
The American social contract is now threatened by a dual crisis affecting both dimensions of mobility. The documented decline in absolute mobility shatters the core promise that each generation will be materially better off, creating widespread economic anxiety and a sense of stagnation.² At the same time, the persistence of low relative mobility undermines the foundational belief in a meritocratic society where effort, not birthright, determines success.³ This combination is more socially corrosive than a decline in either measure alone. It fosters a powerful and destabilizing public sentiment that the economic system is simultaneously failing to deliver broad prosperity
and is fundamentally rigged in favor of the already privileged. Any effective policy blueprint must therefore aim to both restart the engine of broad-based growth (boosting absolute mobility) and level the playing field of opportunity (boosting relative mobility).
1.2 Gauging the Divide: Key Metrics of Intergenerational Mobility
To move beyond conceptual definitions to empirical analysis, economists employ several key statistical tools to measure the strength of the link between generations’ economic outcomes.
The most widely used metric in the academic literature is the Intergenerational Income Elasticity (IGE). The IGE is derived from a statistical regression that estimates the percentage difference in a child’s adult income that is associated with a one percent difference in their parent’s income. It is typically estimated using the following equation:
y1i=α+βy0i+ϵi
where y1i is the logarithm of the child’s income, and y0i is the logarithm of the parent’s income. The coefficient β represents the IGE.⁷ A higher IGE value indicates a stronger connection between parent and child income, which implies lower intergenerational mobility. For example, an IGE of 0.5 suggests that, on average, 50% of the income gap between any two families is expected to persist into the next generation.⁸ An IGE of 0 would imply perfect mobility, where there is no correlation between a parent’s and a child’s income.
Early studies of mobility in the United States, often relying on single-year income data, produced IGE estimates around 0.2, suggesting a highly mobile society where economic advantages and disadvantages dissipated within a few generations.⁹ However, this research was flawed. A single year of income is a “noisy” measure of a family’s true long-term economic status. Groundbreaking work beginning in the 1990s, using longitudinal data from sources like the Panel Study of Income Dynamics (PSID), demonstrated that averaging parental income over multiple years provides a much more accurate picture of permanent income.⁷ These more sophisticated methods produced dramatically higher IGE estimates for the U.S., with a modern consensus placing the figure at 0.4 or higher, and some studies using extensive administrative data suggesting it could be as high as 0.6.⁷ This revised understanding reveals that family background is far more determinative of a child’s economic future in the U.S. than was previously believed.
While the IGE is a powerful summary statistic, it can be less intuitive for a broader audience. Therefore, researchers also frequently use rank-based measures of mobility. These metrics typically divide the population into income quintiles (or percentiles) and measure the probability of a child moving from one rank to another. A common example is the “rags-to-riches” probability: the chance that a child born to parents in the bottom income quintile will reach the top income quintile as an adult.¹¹ These measures provide a clear and compelling picture of large-scale movements up and down the income ladder and are particularly useful for highlighting differences in opportunity across different geographic areas or demographic groups.⁶
1.3 The Diagnosis: Evidence of Declining Absolute Mobility and Stagnant Relative Mobility
When these metrics are applied to historical data, a stark and troubling picture of American economic mobility emerges. The most alarming trend is the dramatic collapse in absolute mobility. Landmark research by a team of economists led by Raj Chetty, using de-identified tax records for millions of families, provides the definitive evidence. Their analysis shows that while over 90% of American children born in 1940 grew up to earn more than their parents, that figure has steadily declined with each successive birth cohort. For children born in 1980, the rate of absolute mobility had fallen to just 50%—a coin flip.⁶ This finding quantifies the widespread sense that the American Dream is fading and that the promise of generational progress is no longer a given. The two primary drivers of this decline are the slowdown in overall economic growth since the 1970s and the increasingly unequal distribution of that growth, with a disproportionate share of gains flowing to the highest earners.²
While absolute mobility has plummeted, relative mobility has remained stubbornly low and largely unchanged for at least the past 50 years.³ This means that despite massive social and economic changes, the United States has made virtually no progress in decoupling a child’s economic fate from that of their parents. A child’s rank in the income distribution is just as dependent on their parents’ rank today as it was for children born in the 1970s. This “stickiness” at the top and bottom of the income distribution is particularly pronounced. Most individuals born into the top two income quintiles remain there as adults, while fewer than one in ten born into the bottom quintile manage to climb into the top quintile.³
This combination of declining absolute mobility and stagnant relative mobility places the United States in an unfavorable position globally. Cross-country comparisons consistently show that the U.S. has lower rates of intergenerational mobility than most other developed nations, especially the Nordic countries of Denmark, Norway, and Finland, as well as Canada.⁸ The American economy has become less a ladder of opportunity and more a system that perpetuates advantage and disadvantage across generations.
1.4 A Nation of Extremes: Geographic Variation in Opportunity
The national statistics, while grim, mask another critical dimension of the mobility crisis: opportunity in America is profoundly local. The same research from Opportunity Insights that documented the decline in absolute mobility also revealed staggering variation in rates of mobility across different parts of the country.¹² A child’s chances of climbing the income ladder are heavily dependent on the specific community—and even the neighborhood—in which they grow up.⁹
The data creates a “heat map” of opportunity across the United States. Some areas, such as the Great Plains, parts of the West Coast, and the Northeast, exhibit rates of relative mobility comparable to the most mobile countries in the world. In contrast, other regions, particularly the Southeast and the industrial Midwest, show extremely low rates of mobility, where the prospects for children from low-income families are bleak.⁹
The differences are not subtle. For example, a child born in the early 1980s into a low-income family (bottom quintile) in Boulder, Colorado, could expect to reach, on average, the 47th percentile of the national income distribution in adulthood. A similarly situated child growing up in Cincinnati, Ohio, could only expect to reach the 38th percentile.⁹ This geographic lottery of birth has profound implications for policy. It demonstrates that national averages can be misleading and that the drivers of mobility—and therefore the most effective policy levers—are often rooted in local conditions, such as the quality of schools, the degree of racial and economic segregation, and the strength of social capital.¹⁵ Understanding these local dynamics is essential for designing a blueprint that can effectively restore opportunity across the diverse American landscape.
Table 1: Key Measures of Economic Mobility
| Measure | Definition | Example | Primary Focus | Current U.S. Trend |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Absolute Mobility | The share of children who have higher inflation-adjusted incomes than their parents at the same age. | A child born in 1980 earns $60,000 at age 30, while their parent earned an inflation-adjusted $50,000 at age 30. | Rising standard of living and broad-based economic growth. | Sharply Declining ² |
| Relative Mobility | The degree to which a child’s rank in the income distribution is independent of their parents’ rank. | A child born to parents in the bottom 20% of earners reaches the middle 20% as an adult. | Equality of opportunity and fairness of the economic system. | Low and Stagnant ³ |
| Intergenerational Income Elasticity (IGE) | A statistical measure of the persistence of income across generations. A higher IGE means lower mobility. | An IGE of 0.5 means that 50% of the income difference between two families is expected to persist in the next generation. | Strength of the link between parent and child economic status. | High (Low Mobility) ⁷ |
Section 2: Why the Ladder is Broken: The Great Gatsby Curve and the Determinants of Mobility
Understanding that economic mobility is in decline is the first step; diagnosing why is the essential prerequisite for formulating an effective policy response. The erosion of opportunity is not the result of a single factor but rather a complex interplay of economic structures, social conditions, and institutional failures. At the center of this dynamic is the profound and growing level of economic inequality in the United States, a force that warps the landscape of opportunity and strengthens the barriers faced by disadvantaged children.
2.1 The Iron Law of Mobility: How High Inequality Constrains Opportunity
One of the most powerful findings in modern economics is the strong, cross-country relationship known as the Great Gatsby Curve. This curve plots a nation’s level of income inequality (typically measured by the Gini coefficient) against its level of intergenerational mobility (measured by the Intergenerational Income Elasticity, or IGE). The data reveals a clear and consistent pattern: countries with higher income inequality almost invariably have lower intergenerational mobility.⁹ Children from poor families in more unequal societies have a much harder time improving their economic status as adults.¹⁷ The United States sits as a stark outlier on this curve, characterized by both higher inequality and lower mobility than most other developed nations.¹³
The Great Gatsby Curve is more than a mere statistical correlation; it provides a causal framework for understanding the mechanics of declining opportunity. High inequality is not a problem that exists in parallel to low mobility; it is a primary driver. It creates both the means and the motive for affluent families to engage in “opportunity hoarding,” effectively pulling up the ladder of mobility behind them.¹⁹
The mechanisms through which inequality suppresses mobility are multifaceted. First, as the income gap widens, affluent families can make exponentially greater private investments in their children’s human capital. This includes everything from high-quality childcare and preschool, to private tutoring, summer enrichment programs, and access to extracurricular activities that build valuable skills.²⁰ Second, this divergence in private investment creates a widening “opportunity gap” that resource-strapped public systems—such as public schools and community centers—are unable to close. In fact, as inequality rises, the political will to fund robust public goods often erodes, as the wealthy can opt out and purchase superior private alternatives. Third, high inequality fuels residential segregation by income. As the rich pull away from the poor and the middle class shrinks, communities become increasingly stratified, sorting children into vastly different environments with unequal access to quality schools, safe streets, and valuable social networks.¹⁹ In this way, high inequality acts as a precondition, a foundational economic structure that makes all other barriers to mobility—from underfunded schools to social isolation—more potent and more difficult to overcome.
2.2 The Birth Lottery: Family, Wealth, and Early Childhood Investments
The family remains the most fundamental institution in shaping a child’s life chances. The resources and environment a child is born into have a profound and lasting impact on their developmental trajectory. Research has identified a core set of family factors that are key determinants of intergenerational mobility, including parental income, parental education level, credit constraints, and household composition (e.g., single-parent vs. two-parent households).²²
In an era of high inequality, these factors have led to a widening “parenting gap”.²³ High-income parents, who are also typically more educated, are able to invest significantly more time and money in activities that promote their children’s cognitive and social development.²¹ These disparities in investment begin at birth and create achievement gaps that are already evident by the time children enter kindergarten.
It is also crucial to distinguish between income and wealth. While income pays the bills, wealth provides a critical foundation for opportunity and a buffer against economic shocks.¹⁵ Families with wealth can afford a down payment on a home in a good school district, finance a child’s unpaid internship that provides crucial career experience, provide seed capital for a new business, or simply weather a job loss or medical emergency without falling into a cycle of debt. The racial wealth gap, in particular, is a staggering barrier to mobility. Decades of discriminatory policies have left Black families with a fraction of the wealth of white families, which has clear and direct implications for the educational attainment and occupational status of the next generation.¹⁵ Without a base of assets to build upon, families are perpetually vulnerable, and the transmission of disadvantage becomes nearly inescapable.
2.3 The Geography of Opportunity: Neighborhoods, Segregation, and Social Capital
As established in Section 1, where a child grows up has a powerful effect on their upward mobility. The mechanisms behind this geographic disparity are deeply intertwined with the patterns of segregation fueled by economic inequality. When income inequality rises, affluent families have both the resources and the incentive to concentrate in exclusive neighborhoods, bidding up housing prices and effectively walling themselves off from lower-income families.¹⁹
This residential segregation by income and race is a primary channel for the intergenerational transmission of poverty and advantage.²¹ Low-income children concentrated in high-poverty neighborhoods are exposed to a cascade of disadvantages. These communities often suffer from higher rates of crime, greater exposure to environmental toxins like lead and air pollution, and a lack of access to quality public goods such as well-maintained parks, libraries, and, most critically, well-funded schools.²¹
Beyond these tangible resource deficits, segregated neighborhoods also create deficits in social capital. Social capital refers to the value derived from social networks—the connections to people who can provide information about jobs, act as mentors or role models, and offer support in times of need.² In affluent, well-connected communities, these networks are a powerful asset, providing children with access to opportunities they would not otherwise have. In isolated, high-poverty neighborhoods, these networks are often frayed or limited, depriving children of crucial peer effects and role models that can shape their aspirations and behaviors.²² Research by Opportunity Insights has shown that growing up in a place with greater social cohesion and cross-class interaction is one of the strongest predictors of upward mobility. Segregation systematically denies this asset to the most disadvantaged children.
2.4 Persistent Disparities: The Enduring Role of Race and Gender
The barriers to upward mobility are not experienced equally across all demographic groups. Even when controlling for parental income, stark disparities persist along lines of race and gender, pointing to deep-seated structural barriers that go beyond household economics.
The most striking evidence concerns the racial gap in mobility. Research using comprehensive administrative data reveals that the overall Black-White gap in upward mobility is driven almost entirely by the dramatically worse outcomes for Black men.⁶ Black and white women have similar rates of mobility conditional on their parents’ income. Black men, however, have substantially lower rates of upward mobility and higher rates of downward mobility than white men, even when they grow up in the same neighborhoods and with parents at the same income level.¹⁵ This finding points to systemic factors beyond simple poverty, including the cumulative effects of racial segregation, disinvestment from public goods in predominantly Black communities, persistent discrimination in the labor market, and disproportionate rates of incarceration, which severely limit lifetime earnings.¹⁵
Gender disparities also play a significant role in shaping economic trajectories. While women have made enormous strides in educational attainment, their lifetime earnings profiles often diverge sharply from men’s. The average earnings of men and women track similarly until about age 30, after which a significant gap opens up.²⁷ This divergence often coincides with the prime childbearing years and reflects the “motherhood penalty,” where women’s career progression and wage growth stall as they take on a disproportionate share of caregiving responsibilities. This acts as a “chute” rather than a ladder, limiting women’s upward mobility even as they start their careers on an equal or stronger footing than men.²⁷
Table 2: The Great Gatsby Curve: An International Comparison
| Country | Gini Coefficient (Inequality) | Intergenerational Income Elasticity (IGE) |
|---|---|---|
| Denmark | 0.28 | ~0.15 |
| Finland | 0.27 | ~0.18 |
| Norway | 0.27 | ~0.17 |
| Canada | 0.32 | ~0.20 |
| Germany | 0.31 | ~0.32 |
| United Kingdom | 0.35 | ~0.50 |
| United States | 0.41 | ~0.50 - 0.60 |
Note: Gini and IGE values are approximate and based on various studies to illustrate the general relationship. Higher Gini coefficient indicates greater inequality; higher IGE indicates lower mobility. ⁸
Section 3: A Blueprint for the Next Generation: A Multi-Pillar Policy Framework
Reversing the decades-long trend of declining mobility requires a comprehensive and sustained policy response. No single intervention can overcome the complex web of barriers identified in the previous section. Instead, an effective strategy must be built on multiple, interconnected pillars that work in concert to create an ecosystem of opportunity, supporting children from birth through adulthood. This section lays out a four-pillar blueprint designed to build human capital, ensure rewarding work, create opportunity-rich environments, and foster intergenerational wealth.
Pillar I: Building Human Capital from Birth
Human capital—the knowledge, skills, and health that people accumulate—is the primary engine of individual economic success.⁶ The opportunity to build this capital begins at birth, and disparities that emerge in early childhood often compound over a lifetime. This pillar focuses on foundational public investments designed to ensure that every child, regardless of their family’s resources, has the opportunity to realize their full potential.
3.1 The Foundational Investment: Universal High-Quality Early Childhood Education
The opportunity gap between children from high- and low-income families opens long before they enter kindergarten.²¹ A vast body of evidence demonstrates that high-quality early childhood education is one of the most effective interventions for closing this gap. Enrollment in quality preschool programs significantly improves school readiness, boosts cognitive and social-emotional skills, and sets children on a path for long-term success.²⁹ The benefits are particularly pronounced for children from low-income households, who often lack access to the same level of enrichment as their wealthier peers.²⁹
The long-term returns on these investments are substantial. Longitudinal studies of programs like the Perry Preschool Project have found that participants had higher educational attainment, higher adult earnings, better health outcomes, and were significantly less likely to be involved with the criminal justice system.³² The societal return on investment is frequently estimated to be over $7 for every $1 invested, making it one of the most cost-effective public policies available.²⁹
Policy Proposal: The federal government, in partnership with states, should establish a system of universal, publicly funded, high-quality preschool for all three- and four-year-olds. To be effective, this system must adhere to high standards of quality, which includes maintaining low student-to-teacher ratios and, critically, ensuring a well-compensated and professionally trained workforce. Low pay for early childhood educators undermines quality and contributes to high turnover.²⁹ While targeted programs can be effective, a universal approach avoids the stigma associated with means-tested programs, builds broad political support, and creates socioeconomically diverse classrooms that have been shown to benefit all children.
3.2 Leveling the Playing Field: Equitable and Adequate K-12 School Funding
The American system of funding public education, which relies heavily on local property taxes, is a primary driver of inequality of opportunity. This system produces vast and indefensible disparities in the resources available to schools. On average, school districts serving the highest proportions of students of color receive approximately $2,700 less per student in state and local funding compared to those with the fewest students of color.³³ Similarly, high-poverty districts are systematically underfunded relative to the most affluent districts in nearly a third of states.³³
This is not just an issue of fairness; it is a direct impediment to mobility. A large and growing body of research confirms that money matters in education. When schools receive more funding, particularly when that funding is sustained over time and directed toward high-poverty districts, student outcomes improve. Studies of state-level school finance reforms have found that increased spending leads to higher test scores, increased high school graduation rates, and higher wages in adulthood for affected students.³³ A 10% increase in per-pupil spending for all 12 years of public school has been shown to result in a nearly 10% increase in adult wages for students from low-income families.³³
Policy Proposal: States must reform their school finance systems to be both adequate and progressive. This means moving away from a reliance on local property wealth and implementing formulas that provide a sufficient base level of funding for all students, with significant additional resources directed to districts serving higher concentrations of students from low-income families, English language learners, and students with disabilities.³⁴
Weighted-student funding formulas are a proven mechanism for achieving this, allocating additional “weights” or funds based on student need.³⁷ Federal policy can incentivize these state-level reforms by increasing Title I funding and conditioning its receipt on states adopting more equitable funding systems.
3.3 Pathways to Prosperity: Affordable Higher Education and Modernized Vocational Training
In the modern economy, a postsecondary credential is more important than ever for achieving a middle-class standard of living. College graduates earn substantially more over their lifetimes and experience much lower rates of unemployment than those with only a high school diploma.³⁹ However, soaring tuition costs and a complex financial aid system have made this crucial pathway to mobility increasingly inaccessible for many low- and middle-income students.⁴⁰
Evidence from Washington state demonstrates the powerful effect of need-based financial aid. A longitudinal study found that students from the lowest-income families who received aid and completed a degree were earning significantly more than their family’s income just three years after graduation, with bachelor’s degree recipients earning more than twice as much. The study concluded that postsecondary education is a “great intergenerational economic equalizer”.⁴¹ Yet, even for those who complete a degree, the economic returns are often lower for students from disadvantaged backgrounds, indicating that barriers beyond tuition—such as a lack of social networks or the need to work long hours during college—still persist.²
Furthermore, the singular focus on a four-year degree has led to the neglect of alternative pathways to skilled, well-paying jobs. High-quality Vocational Education and Training (VET), including apprenticeships, can provide a direct and affordable route to stable careers in high-demand fields like healthcare, advanced manufacturing, and renewable energy.⁴²
Policy Proposals:
Affordable Higher Education: The federal government should significantly increase the value and purchasing power of the Pell Grant, the cornerstone of federal need-based aid, and simplify the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) to make it more accessible. States should reinvest in their public university systems to reverse the trend of rising tuition. These financial supports should be coupled with investments in on-campus programs that provide academic and social support to first-generation and low-income students to improve completion rates.⁴⁵
Modernized Vocational Training: Policymakers should work to elevate VET and apprenticeship programs as a respected and valuable postsecondary option. This requires increased funding and the creation of strong, structured partnerships between community colleges, technical schools, and local industries to ensure that curricula are aligned with current and future workforce demands.⁴² These “earn-and-learn” models can provide debt-free pathways to middle-class careers and are essential for a truly inclusive system of economic opportunity.
Pillar II: Ensuring Rewarding Work and Economic Security
Investing in human capital is necessary but not sufficient. To translate skills and education into upward mobility, individuals need access to a labor market that offers jobs with decent wages, benefits, and opportunities for advancement. For decades, wage growth for low- and middle-income workers has stagnated, and their bargaining power has eroded, making it harder for families to achieve economic stability. This pillar focuses on policies designed to make work pay and to ensure that workers share in the prosperity they help create.
3.4 Making Work Pay: A Modern Minimum Wage and Expanded Tax Credits
For millions of Americans at the bottom of the labor market, stagnant wages make it impossible to get ahead, no matter how hard they work. This directly harms intergenerational mobility by leaving families without the resources to invest in their children’s health and education.²¹ Two of the most direct and effective tools for boosting the incomes of low-wage workers are raising the minimum wage and expanding refundable tax credits.
The debate over the employment effects of the minimum wage is long-standing. However, a large body of modern economic research finds that modest and gradual increases in the minimum wage have little to no negative effect on employment levels, while significantly increasing earnings for low-wage workers.⁴⁷ Some studies suggest that exposure to a higher minimum wage at a young age could decrease future earnings, but the overall evidence on long-term impacts is mixed and complex.⁴⁷
Refundable tax credits, such as the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and the Child Tax Credit (CTC), are among the most successful anti-poverty programs in U.S. history. They function as a wage supplement for low- and moderate-income working families. Rigorous research has shown that these credits not only lift millions of children out of poverty each year but also lead to better long-term outcomes, including improved health, higher test scores, and increased earnings in adulthood.²¹
Policy Proposal: Congress should enact a gradual increase in the federal minimum wage to a living wage and index it to inflation to ensure its value does not erode over time. This should be complemented by a significant expansion and strengthening of the EITC and the full CTC, making them more generous and fully refundable so that the lowest-income families receive the full benefit. This two-pronged approach directly addresses both pre-tax market wages and post-tax disposable income, providing a powerful boost to family economic security.
3.5 Restoring Worker Voice: The Role of Collective Bargaining
The sharp decline in union membership over the past half-century is a major, and often overlooked, driver of rising income inequality and wage stagnation for the American middle class.⁵¹ Unions give workers the power to bargain collectively for better wages, benefits, and working conditions. The “union wage premium” is well-documented, with union members earning, on average, 10% to 15% more than their non-union peers with similar characteristics.⁵³
The benefits of unions extend beyond their own members. By establishing higher standards for pay and benefits in a particular industry or region, unions can lift wages for non-union workers as well, a phenomenon known as the “spillover effect”.⁵² The presence of a unionized parent has also been shown to positively affect the wage and educational outcomes of children, making collective bargaining a tool for intergenerational mobility.⁴⁷ Yet, current labor law is weak and makes it exceedingly difficult for workers who want to form a union to do so, with employers often facing few consequences for illegal union-busting activities.⁵²
Policy Proposal: Congress should pass comprehensive labor law reform, such as the provisions contained in the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act. Such reforms would strengthen protections for workers seeking to organize, impose meaningful penalties on employers who violate labor laws, and streamline the process for reaching a first contract.⁵² Restoring the right to bargain collectively is a crucial “pre-distributive” policy; it helps to ensure that economic growth is shared more broadly from the outset, rather than relying solely on taxes and transfers to correct for extreme market-driven inequality.
3.6 A Resilient Workforce: Lifelong Learning and Support for an Automated Future
The rapid advancement of automation and artificial intelligence (AI) is set to be a major disruptive force in the labor market. While these technologies will boost productivity and create new jobs, they will also displace a significant number of workers, particularly those in routine-based clerical, production, and service roles.⁵⁵ These are often the jobs held by workers with lower levels of formal education, posing a direct threat to their economic security and mobility prospects.⁵⁷ Public perception reflects this anxiety, with a majority of Americans believing automation will increase inequality and that the economy will fail to generate enough new, better-paying jobs to replace those that are lost.⁵⁸
Navigating this transition requires a proactive strategy to help workers adapt their skills to the changing demands of the economy. The challenge is not a future without work, but a future where work requires continuous learning and adaptation.⁵⁹
Policy Proposal: The U.S. should establish a robust system of lifelong learning and worker transition support. This should include the creation of publicly funded “lifelong learning accounts” that workers can use to pay for retraining and upskilling throughout their careers.⁵⁵ This system should be paired with an expanded and modernized social safety net that includes programs like
wage insurance, which partially compensates displaced workers who take new jobs at lower pay, easing their transition and incentivizing re-employment.⁵⁵ Furthermore, public policy should encourage the development of human-complementary AI, which augments rather than replaces human capabilities, by reforming tax policies that currently favor capital investment over investment in labor.⁶⁰
Pillar III: Creating Opportunity-Rich Environments
Individual and family efforts can be either supported or thwarted by the environments in which they live. Access to stable housing, safe neighborhoods, and quality healthcare are not amenities but essential prerequisites for economic mobility. This pillar focuses on public policies designed to break down the geographic and health-related barriers that trap families in cycles of disadvantage.
3.7 Breaking Down Barriers: Housing Policies to Reduce Segregation and Increase Affordability
As detailed in Section 2, residential segregation by income and race is a primary mechanism through which disadvantage is concentrated and transmitted across generations. A key driver of this segregation is the prevalence of exclusionary zoning laws in many affluent communities. Policies such as large minimum lot size requirements, prohibitions on multi-family housing, and complex discretionary review processes effectively make it impossible to build affordable housing, thereby locking low-income families—who are disproportionately families of color—out of neighborhoods with good schools, safe streets, and access to jobs.⁶¹
The federal Housing Choice Voucher (HCV) program is the nation’s largest rental assistance program and is intended to give low-income families the ability to rent in the private market, including in higher-opportunity neighborhoods.⁶³ In practice, however, many families are unable to use their vouchers outside of high-poverty, segregated areas due to landlord resistance, high security deposit requirements, and a lack of information and support.⁶¹
Policy Proposals:
Zoning Reform: The federal government should use its leverage—for example, by conditioning the receipt of transportation and infrastructure funds—to incentivize state and local governments to reform restrictive zoning ordinances. Policies that allow for more diverse and dense housing types, such as duplexes, townhouses, and small apartment buildings, in all residential areas are crucial for creating more racially and economically inclusive communities.⁶¹ There is broad public support across racial and ethnic groups for such reforms.⁶²
Investments in Affordable Housing: Zoning reform alone is often not enough. Federal, state, and local governments must also increase direct investment in the construction and preservation of affordable housing, particularly in well-resourced, low-poverty communities.⁶¹
Enhance Voucher Mobility: The HCV program should be strengthened and expanded. Crucially, vouchers must be coupled with mobility counseling programs that provide families with housing search assistance, financial literacy training, landlord outreach and mediation, and help with moving costs. Evidence from demonstration projects shows that these supportive services can dramatically increase the number of families who successfully move to high-opportunity neighborhoods.⁶¹
3.8 Health as an Economic Asset: Ensuring Universal Access to Quality Healthcare
Health and economic opportunity are inextricably linked. Poor health is a major barrier to mobility, affecting a child’s ability to learn and an adult’s ability to work consistently and productively.⁶⁶ The financial consequences of illness are a primary driver of economic instability; medical debt is a leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States. Furthermore, disparities in health outcomes and access to care are stark, falling along the same lines of income and race that define the mobility gap.⁶⁸ People in low-income households and communities of color are significantly more likely to be uninsured, lack a regular source of care, and suffer from chronic health conditions.⁶⁹
Investing in health is a direct investment in a nation’s human capital and economic productivity.⁶⁶ A healthy population is a more productive workforce, and a robust healthcare sector is itself a major source of job creation. Ensuring that all citizens have access to affordable, quality healthcare removes a major source of financial precarity and allows individuals and families to invest in their futures without the constant threat of a medical crisis derailing their economic progress.
Policy Proposal: The United States must commit to achieving universal health coverage. While the specific policy mechanism can be debated (e.g., strengthening the Affordable Care Act, expanding Medicare, or other models), the goal must be to ensure that no individual or family lacks access to comprehensive and affordable health services. This includes physical, mental, and preventative care. Achieving this goal would not only improve public health but would also provide a foundational layer of economic security that is essential for promoting upward mobility.
Pillar IV: Fostering Intergenerational Wealth and Reducing Disadvantage
The preceding pillars focus on building human capital, improving labor market outcomes, and creating supportive environments. However, to truly break the cycle of intergenerational disadvantage, policy must also address the extreme concentration of income and wealth that lies at the root of the mobility crisis. This pillar proposes structural reforms to the tax system and a bold new program to provide a capital foundation for every child.
3.9 Rebalancing the System: Progressive Income and Wealth Transfer Taxation
The current U.S. tax system does too little to counteract the vast and growing inequality of outcomes that, as the Great Gatsby Curve demonstrates, directly impedes equality of opportunity. A fair and efficient tax system is the primary mechanism for generating the public revenue required to fund the critical investments in education, infrastructure, and health outlined in the previous pillars. It is also a powerful tool for reducing the extreme concentration of wealth that allows for the perpetuation of advantage across generations.⁷¹
The intergenerational transfer of wealth is a particularly potent driver of persistent inequality. Large inheritances provide recipients with a life-altering advantage that has no connection to their own merit or effort, challenging the very notion of a level playing field.⁷³ Yet, the primary tool for taxing these transfers, the federal estate tax, has been systematically weakened over decades. With an exemption level of nearly $14 million per person in 2025, the tax now applies to only one out of every 1,300 estates, a historic low.⁷⁵ This has been described as an “evisceration” of the tax, allowing for the transfer of massive fortunes completely untaxed and contributing to the formation of family dynasties.⁷⁵
Policy Proposals:
Progressive Income Taxation: The federal tax code should be made more progressive by increasing marginal tax rates on the highest incomes. Evidence suggests that optimal top marginal tax rates could be substantially higher than they are currently without harming economic growth, and the revenue generated is essential for funding mobility-enhancing investments.²⁸ The principle of “ability to pay” dictates that those who have benefited most from the economy should contribute more to the public services that make that prosperity possible.⁷¹
Strengthen Wealth Transfer Taxes: Congress should reform and strengthen the estate tax by significantly lowering the exemption level and closing loopholes. An even more effective approach may be to convert the estate tax into a direct inheritance tax, which is levied on the recipient and can be designed to be more progressive by targeting large individual windfalls.⁷⁷ Taxing these transfers judiciously is a critical step toward improving equity and boosting economic mobility.⁷⁵
3.10 Seeding Future Opportunity: Asset-Building through “Baby Bonds”
While progressive taxation can slow the accumulation of wealth at the top, a more direct approach is needed to build wealth from the bottom up. The racial wealth gap is one of the most profound and persistent barriers to mobility in the United States. In 2022, the typical white household had wealth of $284,310, compared to just $44,100 for the typical Black household and $62,120 for the typical Latino household.⁸⁰ This staggering disparity in assets, rooted in a long history of discriminatory policies, severely limits the ability of families of color to invest in their children’s futures, purchase homes, start businesses, and achieve economic security.⁸⁰
Policy Proposal: The federal government should enact a national “Baby Bonds” program. This policy, originally proposed by economists William Darity Jr. and Darrick Hamilton, involves creating a federally funded trust account for every child at birth.⁸⁰ The amount of the initial deposit would be progressive, with children from the lowest-wealth families receiving the largest endowments (e.g., $1,000 or more) and children from the wealthiest families receiving smaller amounts. These funds would be invested and managed by the government, growing over time. At age 18, the young adult would gain access to the account, with the funds restricted to wealth-building activities such as paying for higher education, purchasing a home, or starting a business.⁸²
Baby Bonds represent a paradigm shift in social policy, moving from a reactive safety net that addresses income poverty to a proactive, universal endowment of capital. They directly attack wealth inequality at its source—the circumstances of birth. By providing a capital floor at the start of adulthood, this policy would dramatically change the life-course trajectory for millions of young people, enabling them to make the long-term investments that are the bedrock of upward mobility. Simulations of this policy have shown that it could reduce the median Black-White wealth gap for young adults from a ratio of nearly 16-to-1 to nearly 1-to-1, making it one of the most powerful tools available for building a more equitable and mobile society.⁸³
Section 4: Synthesizing the Blueprint: Lessons from Integrated Models and a Path Forward
The policies outlined in the preceding section constitute a comprehensive and ambitious agenda. However, their effectiveness hinges on recognizing their interconnectedness and implementing them as a coherent strategy rather than a piecemeal collection of individual programs. This final section synthesizes the blueprint, draws lessons from international models, and addresses the practical challenges of implementation to chart a realistic path forward.
4.1 Putting the Pieces Together: Applying a Holistic Framework
A piecemeal approach to promoting mobility is destined to fail. Investing in high-quality preschool will have limited impact if children graduate into underfunded high schools and unsafe neighborhoods. Raising the minimum wage will not be enough if families cannot afford housing or healthcare. The challenges are systemic, and the solutions must be as well.
The Urban Institute’s Upward Mobility Framework provides a valuable model for this type of integrated thinking.⁸⁴ The framework posits that true upward mobility encompasses not only economic success but also power, autonomy, and a sense of dignity and belonging. It identifies five essential and interconnected pillars that communities must provide to support residents: Rewarding Work, High-Quality Education, Opportunity-Rich and Inclusive Neighborhoods, a Healthy Environment and Access to Good Health Care, and Responsive and Just Governance.⁸⁴
The four-pillar blueprint presented in this report aligns directly with this holistic model. Our proposals for education and vocational training map onto the “High-Quality Education” pillar. Policies on minimum wages, collective bargaining, and lifelong learning correspond to “Rewarding Work.” Our focus on housing reform and universal healthcare addresses the “Opportunity-Rich Neighborhoods” and “Healthy Environment” pillars. Finally, our proposals for tax reform and asset-building programs like Baby Bonds fall under the broader goal of creating a more “Just Governance” system that actively works to reduce systemic inequities. Adopting such a comprehensive framework is essential for policymakers to coordinate efforts across different government agencies and sectors, ensuring that policies are mutually reinforcing rather than working at cross-purposes.
4.2 International Perspectives: What Can Be Learned from the Nordic Model?
In the search for effective policies, it is instructive to look abroad to countries that have achieved what the United States has not: high levels of economic prosperity combined with low inequality and high rates of intergenerational mobility. The Nordic countries—Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Sweden—are consistently ranked at the top of international mobility league tables and offer important lessons.¹⁸
The success of the Nordic model rests on several key pillars that mirror the proposals in this blueprint: substantial public investment in universal services like education and healthcare; a robust social insurance system that protects individuals from economic shocks; and a highly progressive tax system to fund these public goods.⁸⁷
However, a crucial lesson from the Nordic experience is the importance of “pre-distribution” in addition to redistribution. Pre-distribution refers to policies that shape market outcomes to be more equal from the start, before the government intervenes with taxes and transfers. The central pre-distributive institution in the Nordic countries is a system of strong, influential labor unions and centralized wage bargaining. This system leads to significant “wage compression,” meaning a much smaller gap between the highest- and lowest-paid workers.⁸⁷ This compressed wage structure is the single largest reason for lower earnings inequality in the Nordic region compared to the U.S..⁸⁷ This finding powerfully reinforces the importance of Pillar II of our blueprint, which seeks to restore worker power and make market wages more equitable.
The Nordic model also offers a note of caution. Even in these highly egalitarian societies, family background continues to exert a significant influence on child outcomes.⁹¹ Advantaged families are often better able to navigate and utilize universal public systems to their children’s benefit. This demonstrates that there are no silver-bullet solutions and that even the most comprehensive welfare states cannot completely erase the influence of the family. It underscores the need for continuous effort and policies that are not just universally available but are also targeted in their design and implementation to reach the most disadvantaged.
4.3 Navigating the Political Landscape and Addressing Unintended Consequences
Implementing this blueprint will undoubtedly face significant political and practical challenges. The scale of investment required is substantial, and many of the proposals challenge long-standing political orthodoxies and entrenched interests. Success will require building broad coalitions and demonstrating that investments in mobility are not just a matter of social justice but also a prerequisite for long-term economic growth and stability.¹⁶ Public support for many of these individual policies, from increasing education funding to zoning reform, is often quite high, suggesting that a politically feasible path forward is possible.⁶²
Careful policy design is also essential to avoid unintended negative consequences. One of the most significant challenges in designing social safety net programs is the “benefits cliff”.⁹⁶ This occurs when a family earns a small amount of additional income that pushes them just over an eligibility threshold, causing them to lose a far greater amount in benefits (such as childcare subsidies or housing assistance). This creates a powerful disincentive to work more hours or accept a promotion, trapping families in poverty. Policies must be designed with gradual phase-out rates to smooth these cliffs and ensure that work always pays.
Similarly, programs must be implemented thoughtfully. As noted previously, providing a family with a housing voucher is not enough; without active mobility support, the program can have the unintended consequence of concentrating voucher holders in already disadvantaged neighborhoods.⁶⁴ The use of automated and algorithmic systems in administering public benefits, while intended to increase efficiency, can also create new barriers and biases that disproportionately harm poor and working-class families if not designed and monitored with extreme care.⁹⁷ A commitment to evidence-based policymaking, including rigorous evaluation and a willingness to adapt programs based on what works, is paramount.
4.4 Conclusion: A Coordinated Strategy for Revitalizing Upward Mobility
The decline of upward economic mobility is one of the most pressing challenges facing the United States. It threatens not only the economic prospects of future generations but also the nation’s social cohesion and the legitimacy of its democratic institutions. The evidence is clear: the pathways to opportunity have narrowed, and the circumstances of a child’s birth have become too determinative of their life’s course.
Reversing this trend is possible, but it requires abandoning the notion of simple, standalone solutions. The blueprint presented in this report offers a coordinated, multi-faceted strategy that is grounded in a deep understanding of the structural forces that have broken the ladder of opportunity. It is a strategy that invests in people from birth, ensures that work provides a pathway to the middle class, builds inclusive communities where everyone has a chance to thrive, and directly confronts the corrosive effects of extreme wealth concentration.
This agenda is ambitious, but the costs of inaction are far greater. A society with low mobility is a society that wastes human potential, stifles innovation, and sows the seeds of social and political instability. By embracing a comprehensive, long-term commitment to the policies outlined in this blueprint, we can begin to rebuild the foundations of shared prosperity and restore the promise of the American Dream for the next generation and for all generations to come.
Table 3: The Upward Mobility Blueprint: A Summary of Policies and Targeted Barriers
| Policy Proposal | Primary Pillar | Key Barrier Addressed |
|---|---|---|
| Universal High-Quality Preschool | Human Capital | Early childhood opportunity gap; disparities in school readiness. |
| Equitable K-12 School Funding | Human Capital | Unequal access to quality education; segregation by income/race. |
| Affordable Higher Ed & VET | Human Capital | Barriers to postsecondary attainment; lack of non-degree pathways. |
| Minimum Wage & Expanded Tax Credits | Rewarding Work | Stagnant low-wage work; family economic insecurity. |
| Strengthen Collective Bargaining | Rewarding Work | Eroding worker power; wage stagnation and inequality. |
| Lifelong Learning & Transition Support | Rewarding Work | Labor market disruption from automation and AI. |
| Zoning Reform & Housing Vouchers | Opportunity-Rich Environments | Residential segregation; lack of affordable housing in high-opportunity areas. |
| Universal Access to Healthcare | Opportunity-Rich Environments | Health-related economic shocks; poor human capital development. |
| Progressive Income & Estate Tax | Wealth & Disadvantage | High income/wealth inequality; perpetuation of dynastic advantage. |
| “Baby Bonds” Program | Wealth & Disadvantage | Intergenerational racial wealth gap; lack of seed capital for young adults. |
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