Justice
Why the Solutions to Economic Mobility Are Local
The American Dream now comes down to a coin toss, explains economist Raj Chetty.
In 1940, 92 percent of kids in America could grow up to do better than their parents, economically-speaking. Today, that’s just 50 percent. The American Dream, in other words, comes down to a coin toss. This issue, it turns out, really comes down to the neighborhood inequalities.
“While this is a daunting national trend, its roots are really at the local level,”says Raj Chetty, an economist at Stanford University, speaking at CityLab Paris, an annual convening of city leaders. And because each locale has its own constellation of problems dragging down its residents, solutions need to be data-driven and super specific.