Thursday, May 31, 2007 | Today’s Union Tribune editorial blasts the Pew Charitable Trusts report on income mobility as “dubious numbers.” The primary finding of the report that young men in their 30s in the United States are not doing as well financially as their fathers’ generation did. This income lag has occurred despite the phenomenal growth in productivity.
The U-T thinks that the current generation is suffering the “consequences of bad choices throughout their lives, such as whether to pursue more education.”
I could not decipher this statement or the claims of “holes” in the study. In fact, every measure of educational achievement from Census data over half the century shows that our population over 25 is more educated than before.
What is dubious is the U-T’s blindness to the problem of declining wages and family income.