Has an authority figure ever forced you to try something you were almost positive you couldn't do?
An unreasonable distance to run, some type of math, a food you knew would be gross - we as humans absolutely hate futile actions taken and time wasted.
I mention this human trait because we would do well to remember it as we discard the notion of class mobility. There are gaps between classes, but people can move between them.
It has become quite popular to remark on the growing disparity between the social classes, and you're even cooler if you point out the virtual impossibility of climbing out of poverty.
We need to recognize that the more popular that belief becomes, the more discouraged impoverished people will be to try at all. If the nature of the American economy is going to keep them down, why should they try? So we better make certain we're right on this issue.
At least until we do, we need to stop treating those who still think that the American dream is possible like they believe in Santa Claus.
Many of you might be wondering why so many people would think something were true if it were false. That is worth asking, but it's foolish to do so before you decide if it's true or not in the first place. If you start with figuring people out first, you may never discover its inaccuracy for yourself. Bottom line: The majority has been proven wrong a lot in history, so figure out what you believe first.
The main piece of evidence suggesting "the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer" is tax brackets. To be specific, the top 20 percent of households in the U.S. possessed 44.1 percent of the national wealth in 1980, and that figure rose to 50.4 percent by 2005. The bottom 20 percent fell from 4.2 percent to 3.4 percent. Well, isn't that an open-and-shut case?
Hardly.
The fundamental misconception is equating people with percentages. The top 20 percent may have a greater proportion, but there's nothing wrong with that if the individual people across the board can move around.
That's what mobility is, and that's what's happening.
To throw out more illuminating numbers, in the same period mentioned above, 56 percent of the people in the country moved from one quintile to another, and that movement was pretty much across the board.
Most pertinently, roughly half of the people that were in the bottom 20 percent moved up. Of course there still is a bottom 20 percent - it's just made up of different individuals. We do still care about that, right?
The above numbers come from a U.S. Department of Treasury report from November 2007.
If you don't trust the government to report on itself, check out the University of Michigan's "Panel Study on Income Dynamics." It found that only 5 percent of the people who were in the bottom income quintile in 1975 were still there in 1991.
Almost 30 percent of that group had made it into the wealthiest 20 percent of the country.
If these numbers give you a headache, I empathize.
But until you know exactly what they mean, it'd be best to stop assuming that the rich are evil and the poor are hopeless.
Gerald Liles is a history and religion senior. His column appears on Tuesdays.
