The decline of upward mobility in one chart

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

You either make the system work for people, or they will find someone who they think will destroy the system and replace it. Emphasis on "they think" and the dangers present with that are the collateral damage of leaving this to fester.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The sharp declines in mobility for lower-income groups look like the disincentivizing effects of a growing redistributive welfare state.

Does it though? The growth of the welfare state largely happened in the 1930s-70s, and upward mobility was generally stronger back then. I would think the lack of growth in real incomes for low-income workers would have a much greater impact.

That's the ultimate problem here.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

That's the ultimate problem here.

Yup that's my point too, that was my roundabout Canadian way of responding to Del Tachi's assertion that it was the welfare state that killed upward mobility.

I think it is more the other way around, that dependency is more of a symptom then a cause, which points the fingers back at neoliberalism and its failings causing the very problems that cause both the increased dependency and also by extension, the greater appetites for socialism and extreme populism.