Social mobility is the wrong metric. The economic mobility in the US -- the ability to increase your absolute income -- is far higher than in Europe. Countries

Social mobility is the wrong metric. The economic mobility in the US -- the ability to increase your absolute income -- is far higher than in Europe. Countries with compressed wages have high social mobility, almost by definition, by low economic mobility. Since the US experiences very low wage compression compared to most countries, it will never be "socially mobile" but will have anomalously high wages for a large portion of the population.