America: the Land of Equal Opportunity..?

Born in Omaha, Nebraska, and raised near Madison, Wi to two lovely parents, I was lucky enough to grow up in a household that gave me everything I would need to pursue opportunity. Unfortunately, those that didn’t strike the jackpot in terms of financial well-being upon birth won’t have the same opportunities that I did growing up. And it breaks my heart.

Saying that people born into lower class families won’t have many opportunities may seem like a bold statement, especially in America: the land where you can work hard and pull yourself up by the bootstraps. After all, there are cases of famous people doing just that, right? Document D gives examples of those cases. Although Abraham Lincoln and Oprah grew up poor and pulled themselves up by the bootstraps, those cases are quite rare. After all, Paul Krugman, author of document G, wrote “America is both especially unequal and has especially low mobility.” and proved that point with the chart of intergenerational elasticity and inequality from a colleague of his. Although Krugman’s statement does not say that upward mobility is impossible, it does say it is especially low. Since it is so low, stories like Oprah’s become well known to everyone. Americans love to hear an underdog story because they are so rare, and they capture the idea that people from any background can make something of themselves. Stories of that sort give extremely hard-working lower class Americans all kinds of hope, too. Krugman also argues that instances of upward mobility will get even more rare, as we are “more unequal than we were a generation ago, [and] we should expect even less social mobility going forward”.

So if one is born into a poor family, why is it so difficult to move up? The secret has been out for awhile that getting an education is the most traditional, and arguably the best way, to create opportunities for oneself. Again, I was lucky; I had the great privilege of attending montessori school which gave me a very solid base for the rest of my educational career. Kids whose parents do not invest as much in their education many others do (because they can’t afford it or don’t see it as important) won’t have that base and may struggle later in school. Source B argues that talent comes from investing in something, whether that is education or art classes or piano lessons. For the rich, that’s good news; investing in their child’s future is no problem, and paying money to provide their kids with educational and recreational opportunities is a no-brainer. But, what if one cannot afford to invest in piano lessons or art classes? What if a family’s income is so low that the student must get a job to contribute to the family instead of getting involved in sports? Source A discusses how richer students are involved in extracurriculars and have better grades. There is a strong connection between involvement in extracurriculars and good grades, so those from families who cannot afford to invest in education nor extracurriculars face, once again, an academic disadvantage.

In the lower class families, those students tend to have many other problems to worry about that do not include getting good grades. For thousands of students out there, I would imagine it would be extremely difficult to take Algebra seriously when they worry whether or not they’ll have to go to bed hungry that night, or if the family will be able to afford rent that month. The academic gap between the rich and the poor is real, no matter how many of the rich Americans believe it is not. Moving up the financial and social latter is very difficult, and it appears to be getting even worse as time goes on.