… Today, the United States has less equality of opportunity than almost any other advanced industrial country. Study after study has exposed the myth that America is a land of opportunity. This is especially tragic: While Americans may differ on the desirability of equality of outcomes, there is near-universal consensus that inequality of opportunity is indefensible. …
It’s not that social mobility is impossible, but that the upwardly mobile American is becoming a statistical oddity. [cont.]
Joseph E. Stiglitz, Columbia U. (NYT)