Class in America: Shadowy Lines that Still Divide

Hello Readers–

I will be writing soon about blogs and education, in a few days when I have time to dig up some relevant links.

In the meantime, The NY Times has a new 4-part series on class. Those without accounts can use Bugmenot to avoid those pesky logins.

Check out the interactive chart which tells you where you stand class-wise in regards to four factors: occupation, education, income, and wealth.

Two very interesting quotes:

1. “One surprising finding about mobility is that it is not higher in the United States than in Britain or France. It is lower here than in Canada and some Scandinavian countries but not as low as in developing countries like Brazil, where escape from poverty is so difficult that the lower class is all but frozen in place.

“Those comparisons may seem hard to believe. Britain and France had hereditary nobilities; Britain still has a queen. The founding document of the United States proclaims all men to be created equal. The American economy has also grown more quickly than Europe’s in recent decades, leaving an impression of boundless opportunity.”

This puts to bed many Americans’ cliched notion of the US as “the country where anyone can be President.” And,

2. “Being born in the elite in the U.S. gives you a constellation of privileges that very few people in the world have ever experienced,” Professor Levine said. “Being born poor in the U.S. gives you disadvantages unlike anything in Western Europe and Japan and Canada.”

I knew my instinct to move to Canada or Sweden was a good one.