Family Structure & The Great Gatsby Curve

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Scott Winship and Donald Schneider have a recent piece at the Manhattan Institute’s e21 on the widely-cited Great Gatsby Curve. Their detailed analysis demonstrates that income inequality (of various sorts) has little statistical relation to economic mobility. What does, however, is single motherhood.

Each dot represents a "commuting zone," i.e. "metropolitan areas or county groupings in rural parts of the country—think of them as local job markets." Inequality increasing from left to right; Immobility (not mobility) rising as from bottom to top.
Each dot represents a “commuting zone,” i.e. “metropolitan areas or county groupings in rural parts of the country—think of them as local job markets.” Inequality increasing from left to right; immobility (not mobility) rising from bottom to top.

As Nathaniel wrote elsewhere, “This strongly correlates with the idea (discussed here previously) that…the ultra-wealthy are not (intrinsically) the problem. The problem is a fracturing of society that is evident not at the extremes, but closer to the middle, where the functional and dysfunctional sides of America are slowly pulling apart.”

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