Hillary: ‘We Know a Lot About Social Mobility’ and ‘Income Inequality’

"The final point I want to make is this. We know a lot about social mobility. You know, one of the biggest issues we face is income inequality combined with wage stagnation. They really go hand in hand. We don't have enough good jobs, we don't have people being placed into those jobs, we don't have enough social mobility. Some really interesting work being done by professor Rod Shoddy [sic] and his colleagues at the Harvard. I think really it wakes us up as to what we're facing. 

They have looked at the indicators of social mobility, why do some communities have frankly more ladders for opportunity than other communities; how do we promote success and upward mobility. It's not only about average income as important as that is. You can look at cities that on average have similar affluence but people are trapped and not able to move up in one city and are moving up in another. I'll give you two examples. Two cities with  similar affluence Seattle and Atlanta have markedly different rates of economic mobility. It's not about race. White and black citizens of a city like Atlanta both have low upward mobility. 

It turns out that places where the fabric of community is strong with a vibrant middle class, places that are more integrated across class, places with good schools, places with unions, places with religious organizations and civic organizations help people feel rooted part of a community and then being able to pull together all of the aspects that play into upward mobility."