ABSTRACT
Advocates for expanding the Entitlement State focus on four measures: economic immobility, income and wealth inequalities, persistent poverty, and unemployment, a continued lack of jobs. This chapter analyzes economic immobility and the dispersion of income and wealth in the United States. Economic mobility connotes the ability of individuals to move up the income and wealth ladders from one generation to the next. However, reality fails to match Americans' economic mobility expectations. Wealth and income inequalities in the United States have grown in recent decades, especially at the very top of wealth and income distribution, making economic mobility more difficult. The roots of economic immobility and income and wealth inequalities are complex and result from at least nine factors. The qualities the middle-class children develop generally are more highly valued than the ones developed by children of working-class and low-income parents.
