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The article measures mobility based on one's percentile movement across the income distribution. There are more rungs to climb in the US because there's a wider

The article measures mobility based on one's percentile movement across the income distribution. There are more rungs to climb in the US because there's a wider income range, whereas in Europe income differences are compressed. The same income increase in absolute terms gets you more social mobility in Europe than in the US. I'm initially skeptical of studies that imply large-scale misunderstanding among the public about their own lives; here that Americans are too optimistic and Europeans are too pessimistic. I'm sure there's some truth to it, but it's not the whole story. The conclusion of the article is in part a reflection of the methodology.

notacoward 5y ago
> there's a wider income range ...and that's why such comparisons should be done using percentiles instead of absolute values. Which they did. > The conclusion of the article is in part a reflection of the methodology. The biggest methodological flaw points in quite a different direction than you seem to be suggesting. Change in percentile across the income distribution is less informative than change in percentile across the wealth distribution, and that should be the age adjusted wealth distribution as well. Comparing my retirement income to somebody who's still working is practically useless. Comparing it to what my age peers have in the bank compared to when we were all much younger tells something close to the true story.
- twoodfin 5y ago
  Absolute is what matters. If 80% of your society is earning between $60k and $90k, a quintile jump around the middle is small compared to a similar shift in a $40k to $180k society. Relative mobility doesn’t buy you a vacation home.
  - notacoward 5y ago
    > Absolute is what matters. Only from a purely acquisitive standpoint, but not with respect to social mobility which is the subject here. Also, study after study has shown that life satisfaction is more highly correlated with relative income or wealth than absolute. If we want to use science instead of personal preference to determine what matters, you're flatly wrong. > If 80% of your society is earning between $60k and $90K Why choose such an unrealistic example when a real one is right there? Seems suspect TBH. The real distribution is nowhere near as tightly clustered around the median, and is quite asymmetric with a much longer tail at the high end. Also, why only consider changes in the middle? A small percentile difference at either end can have a much larger effect on quality of life. > Relative mobility doesn’t buy you a vacation home. The difference between second and fourth quintile actually does mean something like that, and does so regardless of prices or inflation. Absolute values are the ones that become meaningless without the context of prices in a particular time and place. The house I'm sitting in right now as I write this (vs. the dumps I grew up in) is a pretty good testament to the difference between first and fifth quintile, but the price of the house doesn't matter a damn bit.
twoodfin 5y ago
This comment is 100% correct but somehow got shuffled to the bottom and greyed. It doesn’t make sense to measure income mobility in anything but absolute terms: Would you rather move one quintile in a wide income distribution or two within a much narrower one?
- notacoward 5y ago
  That's a totally disingenuous comparison because it ignores both prices and the actual shape of the distribution. Don't perseverate over big numbers. If everyone's income doubled overnight we'd have a wider range ... but it would be utterly meaningless if prices also doubled. Likewise, if a trillionaire magically appeared the total range would increase but that would have zero effect on what a quintile difference meant to anyone else. Absolute numbers are useless. Percentiles matter because they're intrinsically tied to the other things that give differences any meaning.
  - _delirium 5y ago
    I agree, the GP comment makes no sense. Prices of important things like homes are set relative to income, so it's relative income that is important, not absolute income. Most people judge their affluence in terms of evaluations like: "I make enough money to buy a nice house in a nice neighborhood".
  - visarga 5y ago
    Depends on what politicians the trillionaire is spending his money on.

notacoward 5y ago

> there's a wider income range ...and that's why such comparisons should be done using percentiles instead of absolute values. Which they did. > The conclusion of the article is in part a reflection of the methodology. The biggest methodological flaw points in quite a different direction than you seem to be suggesting. Change in percentile across the income distribution is less informative than change in percentile across the wealth distribution, and that should be the age adjusted wealth distribution as well. Comparing my retirement income to somebody who's still working is practically useless. Comparing it to what my age peers have in the bank compared to when we were all much younger tells something close to the true story.

twoodfin 5y ago
Absolute is what matters. If 80% of your society is earning between $60k and $90k, a quintile jump around the middle is small compared to a similar shift in a $40k to $180k society. Relative mobility doesn’t buy you a vacation home.
- notacoward 5y ago
  > Absolute is what matters. Only from a purely acquisitive standpoint, but not with respect to social mobility which is the subject here. Also, study after study has shown that life satisfaction is more highly correlated with relative income or wealth than absolute. If we want to use science instead of personal preference to determine what matters, you're flatly wrong. > If 80% of your society is earning between $60k and $90K Why choose such an unrealistic example when a real one is right there? Seems suspect TBH. The real distribution is nowhere near as tightly clustered around the median, and is quite asymmetric with a much longer tail at the high end. Also, why only consider changes in the middle? A small percentile difference at either end can have a much larger effect on quality of life. > Relative mobility doesn’t buy you a vacation home. The difference between second and fourth quintile actually does mean something like that, and does so regardless of prices or inflation. Absolute values are the ones that become meaningless without the context of prices in a particular time and place. The house I'm sitting in right now as I write this (vs. the dumps I grew up in) is a pretty good testament to the difference between first and fifth quintile, but the price of the house doesn't matter a damn bit.

twoodfin 5y ago

This comment is 100% correct but somehow got shuffled to the bottom and greyed. It doesn’t make sense to measure income mobility in anything but absolute terms: Would you rather move one quintile in a wide income distribution or two within a much narrower one?

notacoward 5y ago
That's a totally disingenuous comparison because it ignores both prices and the actual shape of the distribution. Don't perseverate over big numbers. If everyone's income doubled overnight we'd have a wider range ... but it would be utterly meaningless if prices also doubled. Likewise, if a trillionaire magically appeared the total range would increase but that would have zero effect on what a quintile difference meant to anyone else. Absolute numbers are useless. Percentiles matter because they're intrinsically tied to the other things that give differences any meaning.
- _delirium 5y ago
  I agree, the GP comment makes no sense. Prices of important things like homes are set relative to income, so it's relative income that is important, not absolute income. Most people judge their affluence in terms of evaluations like: "I make enough money to buy a nice house in a nice neighborhood".
- visarga 5y ago
  Depends on what politicians the trillionaire is spending his money on.