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Analyzing data covering a near universe of Americans born from 1978 to 1992, the researchers found that when employment among the poor parents of children in a community improves, those children are better off economically as adults

it doesn’t rely on whether a child’s own parents are employed: Outcomes also improve for children who simply grow up in a neighborhood where more parents have jobs. In other words, their own parents might be unemployed, but if their schoolmates’ parents work, their outcomes will be better.

: In places where parental employment deteriorates, the opposite happens—children do worse as adults.

“Growing up in a community where employment rates are higher for people in your race and class—if those employment rates are higher, the kids who grew up in those environments do better in the long run,”

For poor white children born in 1978, vast swaths of the U.S. were a land of opportunity. Apart from some areas, such as Appalachia and Rust Belt areas of Michigan and Ohio, these children overall had a good chance of making it to a higher rung on the income ladder than their parents. 

For poor white children born in 1992, the map was more constrained. While some parts of America, such as the upper Midwest, remained bastions of opportunity, much of the U.S. did worse. Children with parents at the 25th percentile who grew up in Milwaukee had lower income when they turned 27 in 2019—an inflation-adjusted $30,619—than their older counterparts had.

But poor Black children born in 1992 who grew up in Kent County did better. On average, a Black child at the 25th percentile in that birth cohort had inflation-adjusted household income of $23,547 at age 27, or 38% more than their 1978 counterpart. 

In contrast to the environment for poor white children, few places in America provided poor Black children born in 1978 much opportunity for advancement.

Kent County, Mich., is a little more than 100 miles directly east of Milwaukee, and home to Grand Rapids, another old-line manufacturing city. Black children born to parents at the 25th percentile by income in 1978 who grew up in Kent had an average household income of $17,029 at age 27. That put them at the 28th percentile by income, leaving them on essentially the same rung as their parents.

This dynamic, playing out across the country, led to a significant widening of the income gap between poor and well-off white children. A white child born to parents at the 25th percentile in 1978 made, on average, an inflation-adjusted $10,383 less at age 27 than a child born to parents at the 75th percentile. But for children born in 1992, that income difference was 27% larger at $13,202.

One thing that changed for poor white children compared with poor Black children was the relative share of their parents who were employed. 

In Milwaukee County, for example, the share of the parents of low-income white children who were employed went from 69.1% for children born in 1978 to 55.6% for children born in 1992—a 13.5 percentage point decline. Those employment declines were likely driven by the loss of more than a third of the county’s manufacturing jobs during those years. Children born at the 25th percentile in 1992 reached the 44th percentile on average, 4 percentage points lower than those born in 1978.

And this pattern of falling parental employment and worsening outcomes repeated itself across much of the country. In counties where employment rates among poor white parents fell sharply, such as Philadelphia County, Pa., the income ranks of poor white children in adulthood fell too. Mobility tended not to deteriorate as much for poor white children growing up in counties such as Sumner, Tenn., where parental employment held up better.

the experience in Kent was the general pattern across the country, with employment rates for the parents of poor Black children falling less than their poor white counterparts, or gaining. And as was the case with poor whites, the new research finds that changes in parental employment rates in a community were strongly associated with changes in children’s outcomes.

the researchers emphasize that it is not a zero-sum game, with mobility for poor Black people improving only because mobility for poor white people is falling: Indeed, places where opportunity for Black children improved most are also where white children did best.

And why was the surge in illegal border crossings so troubling, even for voters who live far from the southern border? Not because they believe Mr. Trump’s florid demagogy about criminals, rapists and residents of mental hospitals pouring in but because they see a country unable to control its borders as a country unable to control its destiny

and as a country that treats strangers better than some of its citizens.

they are part of the same political project. Economic arrangements not only decide the distribution of income and wealth; they also determine the allocation of social recognition and esteem.

Democrats need to acknowledge that the neoliberal globalization project they and mainstream Republicans pursued in recent decades brought huge gains for those at the top but job loss and stagnant wages for most working people

The winners used their windfall to buy influence in high places. Government stopped trying to check concentrated economic power. The two parties joined forces to deregulate Wall Street. And when the financial crisis of 2008 pushed the system to the brink, they spent billions of dollars to bail out the banks but left ordinary homeowners mostly to fend for themselves.

Rather than contend directly with the damage they had done, both political parties told workers to improve themselves by getting college degrees.

The elites who offered this advice missed the implicit insult it contained: If you’re struggling in the new economy, it’s your fault.

as president, despite his centrist career, Mr. Biden turned away from the policies that had prompted populist backlash and empowered Mr. Trump.

Still, he remained unpopular. Mr. Biden and his team thought the problem was one of timing: Public investments take time to produce jobs and tangible benefits.

Mr. Biden’s ambitious public investments in infrastructure, manufacturing, jobs and clean energy recalled the muscular role of government during the New Deal. So did his support for collective bargaining and the revival of antitrust law. It made him one of the most consequential presidents of modern times.

But the real problem was more fundamental. Mr. Biden never really offered a broad governing vision, never explained how the policies he enacted added up to a new democratic project.

Mr. Biden offered no comparable story.When he broke with the era of neoliberal globalization, reasserting government’s role in regulating markets for the common good, he did so with little fanfare or explanation. He did not acknowledge that his own party had been complicit in the policies that had deepened the divide between winners and losers

Mr. Trump has proposed exempting tips from taxes. Well, here’s a bolder suggestion: Why not reduce or eliminate the payroll taxes employees pay and make up the revenue with a tax on financial transactions?

This made him a weak match for Mr. Trump, a candidate with little policy success but whose MAGA movement spoke to the anger of the age.

what does all of this mean for the Harris campaign?

Defeating Mr. Trump means taking seriously the divide between winners and losers that polarizes the country. It means acknowledging the resentment of working people who feel that the work they do is not respected, that elites look down on them, that they have little say in shaping the forces that govern their lives.

To do so, Ms. Harris should highlight a theme that has long been implicit but underdeveloped in Mr. Biden’s presidency: the dignity of work.

The Harris campaign should not only defend these achievements but also embark on something more ambitious: a project of democratic renewal that goes beyond merely saving democracy from Mr. Trump

democracy in its fullest sense is about citizens deliberating together about justice and the common good. The dignity of work is important to a healthy democracy because it enables everyone to contribute to the common good and to win honor and recognition for doing so.

For Ms. Harris, offering concrete proposals to honor work — and to reward it fairly — could force Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance to choose between the working-class party they hope to become and the corporate Republican Party they continue to be.

She should be asking questions that would invigorate progressive politics for the 21st century: If we really believe in the dignity of work, why do we tax income from labor at a higher rate than income from dividends and capital gains? Shouldn’t the federal minimum hourly wage be higher than $7.25?

in the end, it all made for impressive policy but themeless politics. His presidency was a legislative triumph but an evocative failure.

Beyond tax measures: What about public investment in universal child care not only to support those who work outside the home but also to improve the pay and working conditions of caregivers?

Democrats could promote sectoral bargaining so that fast food workers can negotiate wages and working conditions across their industry rather than company by company. Democrats could require companies to give employees seats on corporate boards and classify gig workers as employees

On climate change, rather than imposing top-down, technocratic solutions, what if we tried listening to those who fear their livelihoods will be upended — creating local forums that give workers in the fossil fuel industry and agriculture a chance to collaborate with community leaders, scientists and public officials in shaping the transition to a green economy?

The election season is too short, they might argue, and the stakes are too high; elevating the terms of public discourse is a project for another day.

But this would be a political mistake and a historic missed opportunity. Taunting Mr. Trump as a felon would rally the base but reinforce the divide. Offering Americans a more inspiring democratic project could change some minds, win over some voters and offer some hope for a less rancorous public life.