The ubiquity of cell phones and jet travel—as well as more people in Appalachia playing golf—are all signs that class lines in the United States have blurred in the last 50 years, said David Leonhardt, economics writer for The New York Times at Grainger Hall Tuesday night.
You don't wear your class on your sleeve like you used to,\ Leonhardt said, referring to traditional class markers such as religion, race and make of car that used to define class in the United States.
Yet, despite these changes, Leonhardt said that some class divisions have sharpened.
According to Leonhardt—speaking about The New York Times' 2005 investigative series ""Class Matters""—income is a good proxy for class. Yet, other variables can be used to describe class, including education, wealth and occupation.
Citing a University of California-Los Angeles study, Leonhardt said that fewer middle-class kids are now attending the nation's most prestigious 200 to 300 colleges and universities, in comparison with a generation ago.
Leonhardt also noted only 12 percent of UW-Madison students receive Pell Grants, a marker of low income status.
As for family structure, families with higher income tend to have fewer kids than lower income families. Higher income families also tend to have two parents and wait to have children until the parents are older.
Despite the signs of lingering class difference, U.S. citizens still have faith in class mobility, said Leonhardt. He noted 66 percent of people surveyed last year by The New York Times felt they were better off than their parents were at the same age; only 13 percent said they were worse off.
Leonhardt said many improvements over the last generation can be tied to the increase of women in the labor force rather than an increase in wages. According to Leonhardt, in the last 30 years wages outpaced inflation only one year.
Since Leonhardt does not think wages will outstrip inflation in the future, he said society's best bet for increasing wealth and encouraging social mobility is to get the ""talented kids into school who are not in school.""
Leonhardt's prescription echoes the UW System's ""Growth Agenda,"" which also aims to increase university enrollment.
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