Since WWII in the U.S. 50% of the people starting life in the bottom quintile of income got out of it, 10% got as far as the top quintile; and something like 90% starting in the top quintile dropped out of it.
(The percents are approximate, but best I can remember. Do your own research.)
PS: In the U.S. I qualify as "under the poverty line", yet here in the DR I live a good life.
Maybe since WW2 those were the facts but for the current generations, not so much --
...we are actually a less mobile society than many other nations, including Canada, France, Germany and most Scandinavian countries. This challenges the notion of America as the land of opportunity."
Another 2007 study ("Economic Mobility Project: Across Generations") found significant upward "absolute" mobility from the late 1960s to 2007, with two-thirds of those who were children in 1968 reporting more household income than their parents[3] (although most of this growth in total family income can be attributed to the increasing number of women who work since male earnings have stayed relatively stable throughout this time[3]).
However, in terms of relative mobility it stated:
"contrary to American beliefs about equality of opportunity, a child?s economic position is heavily influenced by that of his or her parents."[3]
42% of children born to parents in the bottom fifth of the income distribution ("quintile") remain in the bottom, while 39% born to parents in the top fifth remain at the top.[3]
Only half of the generation studied exceeded their parents economic standing by moving up one or more quintiles.[3]
Moving between quintiles is more frequent in the middle quintiles (2-4) than in the lowest and highest quintiles.
Of those in one of the quintiles 2-4 in 1996, approximately 35% stayed in the same quintile; and approximately 22% went up one quintile or down one quintile (moves of more than one quintile are rarer).
39% of those who were born into the top quintile as children in 1968 are likely to stay there, and 23% end up in the fourth quintile.[3]
Children previously from lower-income families had only a 1% chance of having an income that ranks in the top 5%.[5] On the other hand, the children of wealthy families have a 22% chance of reaching the top 5%.[5
///A 1996 paper by Daniel P. McMurrer, Isabel V. Sawhill found "mobility rates seem to be quite similar across countries."[12] However a more recent paper (2007) found a person's parents is a great deal more predictive of their own income in the United States than other countries.[5] The United States had about 1/3 the ratio of mobility of Denmark and less than half that of Canada, Finland and Norway.[1] France, Germany, Sweden, also had higher mobility, with only the United Kingdom being less mobile.[1]
wiki
http://www.treasury.gov/resource-center/tax-policy/Documents/incomemobilitystudy03-08revise.pdf
Since 1995
it is more like 2% than 10% that have made it from the bottom to the top
And 69% of those who started in the top have stayed in the top.
