Five myths about class in America

[HughBeaumont]

3. MYTH NO. 4 With talent and hard work, you can rise above your class.

The Bootstrap Bunch on here as of late might need to read this and get a clue.

It’s a tale as old as Horatio Alger: Anyone can make it in America, no matter their upbringing. As CNN put the notion , “Through hard work and perseverance, even the poorest people can make it to middle class or above.”

But actually, it’s hard to rise above your income level. In cities such as Atlanta, New York and Washington, a child raised in a poor family has a less than 10 percent chance of becoming wealthy in his or her lifetime. It’s not much better in other parts of the country.

There are lots of reasons for this. Our education-funding system perpetuates inequality. Children in poor families more frequently attend poorer schools and receive fewer enrichment opportunities. As a result, they’re less likely to attend college and earn a degree. Data shows that children from families with incomes of at least $120,000 score much better on the SATs than their peers from households earning $20,000 or less.

Sociologists have also found that parents’ wealth is one of the best predictors of a child’s economic success. Rich families are more likely to own property and to pass wealth on to their offspring. In America, land ownership is one of the best ways to preserve wealth — and share it with the next generation. As the economist Joseph Stiglitz said in his book “The Great Divide”: “America is no longer the land of opportunity that it (and others) like to think it is. . . . To a large extent, the American Dream is a myth.”