Free Republic

Now here's news you’re not likely to get from many commencement speeches, especially if they are given by Obama Administration officials, including the chief executive himself. Michael Petrilli, president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, believes that U.S. income mobility, or the rags-to-riches story of the American Dream, is at a standstill. At a presentation and panel discussion at the Hoover Institution, Petrilli pointed out the problems that American families are facing in today's economy. He said that other countries, not the U.S., "tend to do better than we have" in income mobility. Petrilli said that the U.S. and the...

Earlier this week President Obama will deliver the annual State of the Union address. By most indications, the speech will focus on income inequality, an issue the President has previously called “the defining issue of our time.” His speech comes on the heels of the release of important new research published on income mobility last week, showing that U.S. income mobility hasn’t changed in nearly 50 years. Given this, it is worth taking pause to separate fact from myth on inequality, and consider what is concerning about inequality and what is not. Too often, discussions of inequality misidentify the actual...

Despite claims that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer, poverty is nowhere near the problem it was yesteryear -- at least for those who want to work. Talk about the poor getting poorer tugs at the hearts of decent people and squares nicely with the agenda of big government advocates, but it doesn't square with the facts. Dr. Michael Cox, economic adviser to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, and Richard Alm, a business reporter for the Dallas Morning News, co-authored a 1999 book, "Myths of Rich and Poor: Why We're Better Off Than We Think," that...