Pew’s Economic Mobility Project focuses public attention on the ability to move up or down the economic ladder within a lifetime or from one generation to the next. By forging broad, nonpartisan agreement on the facts and drivers of mobility, the project fosters policy debate and action on how best to improve economic opportunity and ensure that the American Dream is kept alive for future generations.
Why Economic Mobility Matters
For more than two centuries, economic opportunity and upward mobility have formed the foundation of the American Dream, and they remain at the core of our nation's identity. As policy makers seek to foster equality of opportunity, it’s critical that their decisions be informed by a robust and nonpartisan fact base on economic mobility.
Factors that Help or Hinder Economic Mobility
Economic mobility is influenced by a variety of factors including education, neighborhoods, savings, and family structure. Pew also strives to understand differences in mobility by income, race, and gender.
How We Conduct Our Work
Pew conducts research on economic mobility to inform policy makers and the public debate. We look at questions such as: How do children's opportunities to achieve the American Dream compare to those of their parents? To what extent is mobility affected by wealth, gender, race, and education? How do people’s mobility prospects differ depending on where they live?
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The LATEST from the Project
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- Press Release
- Economic Mobility Project
Pew Finds Post-Recession Boomers and Gen-Xers Are Less Prepared for Retirement than Older Generations
A new study from The Pew Charitable Trusts, Retirement Security Across Generations: Are Americans Prepared for Their Golden Years?, examines the savings behavior of five age groups before the Great Recession. The research also explores how wealth losses during the recession affected each group’s retirement security by calculating replacement rates.
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- Report
- Economic Mobility Project
Retirement Security Across Generations
This report explores how the Great Recession affected the wealth and retirement security of baby boomers relative to younger and older age groups. more
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- Data Visualization
- Economic Mobility Project
Replacement Rates by Cohort and Household Type
Late Boomers and Gen-Xers do not have adequate resources for retirement and are facing possible downward mobility.
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- Media Coverage
- Economic Mobility Project
National Journal: The American Dream, Downsized
Middle-class Americans are much more concerned about holding onto what they’ve got than in pursuing more. The Pew Economic Mobility project, the Allstate/National Journal Heartland Monitor Poll, and other studies have arrived at similar conclusions. When Pew asked Americans in 2011 if they preferred financial stability or moving up the income ladder, 85 percent of respondents chose the safer, surer future. more
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- Media Coverage
- Economic Mobility Project
Wall Street Journal: Even Brief Unemployment Can Have Long Consequences
The gloomy March jobs report from the Department of Labor includes this ominous figure almost 500,000 Americans dropped out of the labor force, a phenomenon that picks up as people go months and even years without finding work. But even
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