The Measure of a Nation

• Author: Richard Reeves
• Date: 01 January 2015
• DOI: 10.1177/0002716214546998
• Published date: 01 January 2015
• Subject Matter: Section I: The State of Knowledge about Mobility

22 ANNALS, AAPSS, 657, January 2015

DOI: 10.1177/0002716214546998

The Measure of

a Nation

By

RICHARD REEVES

546998ANN The Annals of the American AcademyThe Measure of a Nation

research-article2014

We need more—and better—data on social mobility in

the United States. Normative questions must be

answered first. We have to know why we care about a

particular pattern of mobility to know how to set about

measuring it. The distinction between relative and

absolute mobility is a case in point. Do we care most

about whether people are better off than their parents,

or about how much movement there is up and down

the income ladder? Technical difficulties abound for

the measurement of mobility. It is important not to lose

sight of the motivation for the exercise: measuring how

far the inequality patterns of one generation are

impressed upon the next, understanding these replica-

tion processes empirically, and weakening them.

America has a historic commitment to the ideal of

equality of opportunity. Data on mobility, then, com-

prise the measure of the nation.

Keywords: social mobility; equality; opportunity;

human capital; economic mobility

When Thomas Jefferson drafted the

Declaration of Independence, he did not

write that “All men are created equal.” He

wrote that they were created “equal and inde-

pendent” (emphasis added). The second part

did not make it into the final version, of course.

But the ideal of independence, not only for the

nation, but for each of the individuals within it,

animates the national consciousness to this day.

Every American should have the space and

resources to construct, independently, his or

her own path through life.

Since Truslow Adams coined the phrase in

his 1931 The Epic of America, the “American

dream” has captured this quintessential

Richard Reeves is Policy Director of the Center on

Children and Families and a fellow in Economic

Studies at The Brookings Institution. Recent Brookings

publications include The Parenting Gap (2013), The

Glass Floor (2013), and An Office of Opportunity

(2014). He is also the author of John Stuart Mill:

Victorian Firebrand (Atlantic Books 2007).