Classical Mechanics

Janny Scott and Dave Leonhardt of The New York Times have begun a new series on class in America. Several themes emerge in their opening overview: many of the traditional markers of social class have disappeared, Americans still believe in income and class mobility, but actual class mobility has recently decreased and is less than in many other countries. For example:
Most Americans remain upbeat about their prospects for getting ahead. A recent New York Times poll on class found that 40 percent of Americans believed that the chance of moving up from one class to another had risen over the last 30 years, a period in which the new research shows that it has not. Thirty-five percent said it had not changed, and only 23 percent said it had dropped.

More Americans than 20 years ago believe it possible to start out poor, work hard and become rich. They say hard work and a good education are more important to getting ahead than connections or a wealthy background.

In fact, though
One surprising finding about mobility is that it is not higher in the United States than in Britain or France. It is lower here than in Canada and some Scandinavian countries but not as low as in developing countries like Brazil, where escape from poverty is so difficult that the lower class is all but frozen in place.
When discussing complex and contentious subjects, it helps to define your terms. The authors proclaim
The series does not purport to be all-inclusive or the last word on class. It offers no nifty formulas for pigeonholing people or decoding folkways and manners.
Fortunately, that's a bluff. In fact they offer this really cool interactive graphical widget for calibrating your position in the hierarchy more or less precisely. For the NYT, class is occupation, education, income, and wealth.

The most prestigious occupations are (Surprise! Surprise!) Doctors(1) and Lawyers(2), followed by an unlikely pair of IT types (Data Base and System Admins(3&4)), and, Physicists and Astronomers(5). Distressed as I was to see us below the IT types it was gratifying to see we soundly beat CEO's(46), Mathematicians(48), Street Vendors(434), and Janitors(440).

It's nice to be esteemed, but as physicists and astronomers all know, a prestigious occupation and a couple of graduate degrees, plus 4 bucks, will get you a little foam cup of coffee at Starbucks. Despite their occupational prestige down between Miscelleaneous Health Technicians(42) and Mathematicians, CEOs carry a lot more clout, and live in much bigger houses than Physicists or even Doctors. Class in America, to me, comes down mostly to money, income yes, but even more to wealth.

Concluding themes in this opening essay include the effect of class on health and lifespan, and the increasingly reclusive isolation of the wealthy. This is planned to be a three week series and looks like it could be pretty good.

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