Federal programs keep people poor: we can't tax our way to greater income mobility.

• Author: de Rugy, Veronique
• Position: Columns - Column

Many very rich people in America--including a certain presidential front-runner on the Republican side--were born into their wealth. But others started with nothing and, through talent and effort, worked their way to the top of the heap. From Andrew Carnegie to Sam Walton to Oprah Winfrey, our history is bursting with rags-to-riches stories of people who achieved "the American dream." Winfrey was born dirt poor to unwed teenage parents. She suffered abuse, had to leave her home, and got pregnant at 14, only to lose the child. None of that stopped her from rising to head a multimillion-dollar media operation.

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The idea that anything is possible here has attracted millions of immigrants to U.S. shores--but increasingly the political left has fretted that "income mobility," or the ability to rise from modest beginnings, is faltering in America. In response, Democratic politicians such as Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders are calling for policies to address the absence of "opportunity" through higher taxes on the rich and more wealth redistribution to the poor.

So how does the U.S. actually compare to the rest of the world? In November 2015, Manhattan Institute economist Scott Winship published a two-part series addressing that very question, summarizing his findings like this: "The new evidence does not suggest that the U.S. has especially high economic mobility, but it does indicate that America is not the international laggard that has been portrayed by earlier studies."

That's hardly a ringing endorsement of the status quo. But as Winship says in an email, "Proceeding from the mistaken view that there is no opportunity for anyone will lead policy makers to misdirect scarce resources--including money and attention--away from those who really do face long odds against success." While Americans are better off than their counterparts in other countries on a number of metrics, in some areas, such as mobility among black men, our progress is abysmal.

Clinton and Sanders are right to be concerned about the mobility of poor Americans. But overtaxing the rich is not the answer.

We ought to be concerned when a segment of the population falls behind. But it turns out that many of the policies Clinton and Sanders demand in the name of helping the less fortunate would very likely make the problem worse.

Clinton plans to raise taxes mostly on the top 1 percent of Americans. Sanders' plan mean-while would significantly increase the...