The richest Americans generally don’t have the loudest voices when it comes to politics—billionaires don’t have to shout to make their preferences known. But in recent months, as President Obama has cast the widening divide between the rich and the poor in the United States as unfair and unjust, prominent members of the “1 percent” have had an unusually public message for him: Cool it.

President Obama’s recent speech on income inequality and upward mobility has struck a chord with many Democrats. If the President keeps using this rhetoric, then it could become a central message of the 2012 campaign. If this happens, I would also bet that Elizabeth Warren will give the keynote speech at the Democratic Convention in 2012.

It seems like common sense: Children from wealthier families tend to do better, while children from poorer families have a tougher time climbing the ladder. Today comes one piece of evidence showing exactly how precarious that ladder climb can be for families of modest means.

NPR's All Things Considered interivews Economic Mobility Project Manager Erin Currier, who highlights a recent EMP fact sheet showing less economic mobility in the Unites States than other rich nations.

More than 16 million children now live in poverty in the United States, the highest number since 1962. In all, 19.8 percent of school children were living in poverty in 2010, and childhood poverty rates increased significantly in one of every five U.S. counties between 2007 and 2010, according to a Census Bureau report released today. more