Is race a more consequential determinant of social mobility than class? How and under what circumstances do Americans move up the economic ladder?

For years, Harvard economist Raj Chetty has leveraged big data to answer these questions. In his recent paper, Chetty and his team show that Black millennials born to low-income parents have more quickly risen up the economic ladder than previous Black generations, whereas their white counterparts have fared worse than previous low-income white generations. That said, Chetty finds little movement in or out of the top income brackets and that the income gap between Black and white Americans remains large.

Chetty joins Bethany and Luigi to discuss these new insights as well as why mobility matters, what costs come in the pursuit of bolstering mobility, and how other factors such as parenting, gender, and social capital factor into the equation. What policies should America pursue, especially against the backdrop of the 2024 presidential election, where many conservatives argue that white working-class Americans are falling behind and liberals argue that Black and brown Americans continue to face systemic inequalities?

Show notes:

• Revisit our Capitalisn't conversation with Oren Cass, who is mentioned by Luigi
• Revisit our Capitalisn't conversation on Chile, which is mentioned by Bethany
• Check out related coverage on ProMarket, including a write-up by Raj Chetty and co-authors on "Lost Einsteins," mentioned in the episode