The Northside neighborhood in Cincinnati, home to people from various racial and economic backgrounds, July 20, 2024. Between two generations, Americans’ ability to break into the middle class has changed, with race coming to play a smaller role in upward mobility and social class playing a larger role. (Asa Featherstone, IV/The New York Times)
Lawrence Cain Jr., a Black millennial in Cincinnati, did not have a comfortable upbringing. His family didn’t have much money. They took few vacations. But Cain did have a strong community — which he said taught him entrepreneurship and showed him he could dream big. His mom took double shifts at nursing homes. She and her father ran their own businesses. Cain worked at his grandfather’s deli starting at 11 years old.
Cain, 35, got a two-year degree in business management and first worked as a bank teller and financial adviser. In 2015, he was ready to forge his own path. He started a financial coaching business, Abundance University. Business is booming. Today, Cain identifies as solidly middle-class. He and his wife, a teacher, can support themselves, their three children and then some. They take holidays around the country. “My kids are spoiled,” he joked.
Cain in many ways reflects the trends captured by a new Harvard University study. It looked at two groups: a Generation X cohort born in 1978 and a millennial cohort born in 1992. The researchers combed through decades of anonymized census and tax records to which the federal government gave them access. The data covered 57 million children, which offered a more detailed view into recent generations than previous economic studies had. Adjusting for inflation, the researchers measured these groups’ ability to rise to the middle and upper classes — their economic mobility.
The researchers found that Black millennials born to low-income parents had an easier time rising than the previous Black generation did. At the same time, white millennials born to poor parents had a harder time than their white Gen X counterparts. Black people still, on average, make less money than white people, and the overall income gap remains large. But it has narrowed for Black and white Americans born poor — by about 30%.
The community you come from has a huge effect on your economic mobility. For centuries, this meant a tremendous advantage for white Americans, even those born into low-income families. But in a surprising shift, the study suggests that advantage is not as large as it once was.
On the flip side of Cain is someone such as Derek Brown, a white millennial in Cincinnati. His parents were separated, and he was raised in two worlds: one middle class and one poor. His dad worked at a General Electric factory, a steady job that provided a more middle-class life. His mom worked long hours at gas stations, Brown said, but she struggled. Sometimes, she couldn’t pay the bills, and their power was cut off at home. “It was never the dream,” he said.
Unlike Cain, Brown did not have a strong sense of community, as he bounced among his mother, his father and his grandparents. Watching his mother, he came to believe that hard work does not necessarily lead to a better life. He once hoped to become a journalist when he grew up, but he gave up that dream to pursue what he believed would be a more realistic way to pay the bills.
Today, Brown, 34, feels that he is behind where his father was. He works as a hairstylist at Great Clips. He lives paycheck to paycheck. He currently has a $3,000 medical bill that his insurance didn’t cover, and he doesn’t know how he’ll pay for it. He’s always scared of the next big cost. “I have really bad financial anxiety,” he said. “I don’t even want to drive to places. What if my car breaks down?”
“It’s instilled in your head: Anything is possible if you work hard for it,” Brown added. “What no one tells you is that for some people there is a glass ceiling, and you just don’t see it until you hit it.”
As the Harvard study shows, the difference in outcomes between Cain and Brown is increasingly typical. But the racial differences weren’t the only findings. Over the decade and a half of the study, the opportunity gap between white people born rich and those born poor expanded by roughly 30%. One possible interpretation: “Class is becoming more important in America,” while race is becoming less so, said Raj Chetty, the study’s lead author.
The data didn’t just show that people’s lives were guided by immutable facts such as class and race. It suggested that a person’s community — the availability of work, schooling, social networks and so on — plays a central role.
Imagine a thriving American community. What makes it successful? Jobs are an important factor. So are effective schools, nice parks, low crime rates and a general sense that success is achievable. In a thriving place, people not only get good jobs, but they also know that those jobs can lead to better lives, because they see and feel it all the time. “Our fates are intertwined,” said Stefanie A. DeLuca, a sociologist at Johns Hopkins University who was not part of the Harvard study. “The fortunes of those around you in your community also impact what happens to you.”
On an individual level, Cain benefited from both his mother’s jobs and his family’s support and entrepreneurship. They helped plant the idea that he could work hard and become a business owner. “If your networks are doing well, you may think that you can do well, too,” said David B. Grusky, a sociologist at Stanford University who was not part of the Harvard study.
The inverse is also true. Brown said his childhood was too chaotic for him to develop strong social roots. Across a community, bad events can cascade and cause things to fall apart. Consider a neighborhood in which crime rises. Businesses move to safer locations. The tax base shrinks, and infrastructure deteriorates along with schools. People flee, and social networks splinter. A sense of despair takes over among the people who remain.
Why did things get worse for poor white people and their communities, but not for their Black counterparts? One explanation focuses on the availability of jobs. The researchers found that community employment levels are an important predictor of differences in economic mobility.
Cain believes his story shows that hard work can make a better life possible. He saw just how much his mother, as a Black woman, needed to do to get by. He faced his own doubts and troubles, including racism and discrimination, growing up. But he always remembered what his mother and grandfather taught him: that he could achieve his version of the American dream.
“I can chase that feeling every day of doing things for me, doing things with people I love and making an impact on the community,” Cain said. “That’s success for me.”
c.2024 The New York Times Company. This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
