In his 2013 State of the Union address, President Barack Obama raised two issues that are relevant to the work of The Pew Charitable Trusts: economic mobility and elections.

This report provides an in-depth look at young college graduates’ employment opportunities as compared to less-educated groups. more

Pew's latest report on economic mobility shows a mixed view. While a majority of Americans exceed their parents’ family income and wealth, the extent of their absolute mobility gains are not always enough to move them to a different rung of the economic ladder.

Americans take pride in living in a land of opportunity, where you can "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" and succeed in the face of adversity. But recent research shows that old adage may not be true, depending on where in the country you live. more

Americans love economic mobility. It’s kind of a founding myth for us: We see ourselves as having broken free from rigid, aristocratic Europe to form a meritocracy that guaranteed a chance to move up in the world. Though there has been much talk lately about rising income inequality in the United States, what has worried pundits on both the left and the right has been recent reports that Americans aren’t as economically mobile as citizens other Western nations. more