Black Wealth Barely Exists

Richard Reeves and Edward Rodrigue:

2. Most Black Middle Class Kids Are Downwardly Mobile


Downward intergenerational social mobility from the middle to the bottom is much more common among Black Americans. Seven out of ten black Americans born into the middle quintile fall into one of the two quintiles below as adults. In some ways, this is an even more depressing fact than the poor rates of upward mobility. Even black Americans who make it to the middle class are likely to see their kids fall down the ladder: