The Myth of Upward Mobility

According to lawyer and author Beth Shulman, most of those living in poverty in the U.S. are the working poor. She writes: "There is a reigning American mythology that blunts any concern: that holding a low-wage job is a temporary situation, that mobility and education and time will solve whatever problem exists. The evidence, however, contradicts this myth. Most low-wage workers will never move up the ladder into the middle class....The US economy provides less mobility for low-wage earners...than the economies of France, Italy, Britain, Germany, Denmark, Finland and Sweden."