In contrast to the industrial era, however, today’s inequality is accompanied by vanishing mobility. It is not just that people are staying physically put. They are also likelier to stay trapped in the same income group. America, in particular, which had traditionally shown the highest class mobility of any Western country, now has the lowest. Today it is rarer for a poor American to become rich than a poor Briton, which means the American dream is less likely to be realised in America.
