The changing landscape of economic opportunity by race and class in America: New data and policy implications

There are large differences in children’s chances of rising up and achieving the American Dream of upward income mobility by race, place, and class in America. While a large body of work has emerged studying the roots of these differences in opportunity, much less is known about how opportunity changes over time.

On July 31, the Center for Economic Security and Opportunity at Brookings held a webinar on how opportunity in America is changing. The event focused on a new study from Raj Chetty, Will Dobbie, Benjamin Goldman, and Crystal Yang of Opportunity Insights with Sonya Porter of the U.S. Census Bureau. The research uses data on 57 million children to show how opportunity is changing rapidly by race and class in America and identifies the sociological forces that are driving these important trends. After a presentation of the report, Abigail Wozniak of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis moderated a panel to discuss the new research and what it means for reshaping opportunity in America.

Viewers joined the conversation and asked questions of the speakers by emailing [email protected] or on X/Twitter @BrookingsEcon using the hashtag #ChangingOpportunity.