Raj Chetty
Appearances
Planet Money
Moving to the American dream? (update)
Yeah, so one of the basic findings that's emerged in this research over the past decade is that where you grow up plays an enormous role in shaping your long-term outcomes. And what we've been focused on since identifying that result is trying to figure out why. Is it because of resources available in the area, the quality of schools, the quality of jobs, public transit?
Planet Money
Moving to the American dream? (update)
Is it about who you're interacting with, who you're influenced by? And what we found in a nutshell is that social capital, who you're connected to, and in particular, the amount of interaction between low and high income people in a given area, is one of the strongest predictors of differences in economic mobility worldwide.
Planet Money
Moving to the American dream? (update)
We find that in some places and for some subgroups, Black Americans, for example, growing up in low-income families, they now have slightly better chances of rising up than they did in the past in many places. White kids growing up in low-income families, unfortunately, have worse chances of rising up than they did in the past.
Planet Money
Moving to the American dream? (update)
So what is leading to these disparate changes across subgroups, across areas? We looked at many different factors, and what we find is that there's one variable that strongly predicts these differences, which is the change in the share of parents who are working in these subgroups in the area in which you grew up.
Planet Money
Moving to the American dream? (update)
The Black-white gap in economic mobility has fallen by one-third. In part because poor white communities are falling behind where they used to be. It comes back to the influences of social interaction. If you're growing up in a thriving community where lots of adults can inspire you to pursue a career in education,
Planet Money
Moving to the American dream? (update)
you know, engineering or connect you to an internship opportunity or give you a sense of what kind of college could be good for you, that puts you on a very different trajectory than if you're growing up in a community where all of those things have disappeared.
Planet Money
Moving to the American dream? (update)
That's what this most recent study shows titled Changing Opportunity. It's actually possible to change places and make them higher opportunity areas for the kids living there.