"Economic mobility - the quintessentially American idea (ideal, really) that any one, no matter how humble their origins, can become wealthy - has taken some terrible hits in the last few years. Writing in *The New Republic *http://www.tnr.com/article/politics/magazine/100516/inequality-mobility-economy-america-recession-divergence *, *Timothy Noah notes that income heritability ("a measure of how determinative one generation’s relative income status - what we used to call ‘station in life’ - will be of the next generation’s relative income status') is much higher in the U.S. than in many of the countries that people once emigrated to America from, in search of greater opportunities. “Mobility in the United States has fallen dramatically behind mobility in other comparably developed democracies," he writes."

click here for the complete article, which included very useful charts:

* http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2012/05/what-matters-econo... *