Selected Press Coverage


January 18, 2017, Freakonomics Radio, By Stephen J. Dubner
"Is the American Dream Really Dead?"

Race and Economic Opportunity in the United States

April 3, 2018, Bloomberg View, By Noah Smith
"America, Land of Equal Opportunity? Still Not There"

April 3, 2018, The Economist
"Black boys are the least likely of any group to escape poverty"

March 30, 2018, National Review, By Bradford Wilcox
"For Black Boys, Family Structure Still Matters"

March 28, 2018, Chicago Tribune, By Esther J. Cepeda
"We all need to actively fight the reality of racism"

March 21, 2018, PBS NewsHour, By Yamiche Alcindor
"Black men face economic disadvantages even if they start out in wealthier households, new study shows."

March 21, 2018, The New York Times, By Ralph Richard Banks
"An End to the Class-Race Debate"

March 21, 2018, The Washington Post, By Michelle Singletary
"Black men are at the bottom of the economic ladder. That’s why I won’t stop being a helicopter parent to my black son."

March 21, 2018, Vox, By Dylan Matthews
"The massive new study on race and economic mobility in America, explained"

March 19, 2018, The Washington Post, By Tracy Jan
"Same family income, same street, but the black boy still grows up to earn less"

March 19, 2018, NPR, By Leah Donnella
"Research Shows Black Boys Are Most Likely To Be Stuck In Cycle Of Poverty"

March 19, 2018, The New York Times, By Emily Badger, Claire Cain Miller, Adam Pearce, and Kevin Quealy
"Sons of Rich Black Families Fare No Better Than Sons of Working-Class Whites"

Who Becomes an Inventor in America?

May 30, 2018, PBS Newshour, By Jeffrey Brown
"Who Becomes an Inventor? This Arkansas Innovation Hub Is Trying to Spark a New Generation"

December 15, 2017, Harvard Business Review, By Walter Frick
"Why Cutting Taxes Won’t Make America More Innovative"

December 12, 2017, Bloomberg View, By Noah Smith
"Nurture Counts as Much as Nature in Success"

December 11, 2017, Inquiring Minds
"Lost Einsteins: Left Behind by the Innovation Economy"

December 7, 2017, CBS, By Aimee Picchi
"Why America is a Country of 'Lost Einsteins'"

December 5, 2017, Fortune, By Grace Donnelly
"American Inventors Are Mostly White Men Due To Opportunity Gaps, Says Stanford 'Lost Einsteins' Study"

December 5, 2017, NPR Marketplace, By Kai Ryssdal and Emily Henderson
"Why 'lost Einsteins' are Hurting our Economy"

December 4, 2017, The Economist
"Childhood Surroundings Matter More Than Genes for Would-Be Inventors"

December 4, 2017, Vox, By Matthew Yglesias
"Groundbreaking Empirical Research Shows Where Innovation Really Comes From"

December 3, 2017, The Atlantic, By Alanda
"America's Lost Einsteins"

December 3, 2017, The New York Times, By David Leonhardt
"Lost Einsteins: The Innovations We're Missing"

College Mobility Report Cards

September 10, 2017, Politico, By Benjamin Wermund
"How U.S. News college rankings promote economic inequality on campus"

August 31, 2017, The Atlantic, By Derek Thompson
"The Myth of American Universities as Inequality-Fighters"

July 10, 2017, Washington Post, By Jeffrey Selingo
"New rankings tackle old problem: Measuring the outcome of college"

February 28, 2017, Vox, By Dylan Matthews (accompanying video here)
"These colleges are better than Harvard at making poor kids rich"

January 28, 2017, The Economist
"Skipping Class"

January 25, 2017, Forbes, By Preston Cooper
"Higher Education's Questionable Equality-of-Opportunity Promise"

January 24, 2017, The Sacramento Bee, By Phillip Reese
"Which California Colleges Help Transform Impoverished Students into Wealthy Adults?"

January 24, 2017, The Christian Science Monitor, By Josh Kenworthy
"Why Cal State L.A. Turns the Most Low-Income Students into Top Earners"

January 20, 2017, New York City College of Technology
"City Tech Ranks Top Five Nationwide in College Mobility, Low-Income Students Go Far and Earn More"

January 18, 2017, The New York Times, By Gregor Aisch, Larry Buchanan, Amanda Cox and Kevin Quealy
"Some Colleges Have More Students From the Top 1 Percent Than the Bottom 60. Find Yours."

January 18, 2017, The New York Times, By David Leonhardt
"America's Great Working-Class Colleges"

The Fading American Dream

December 28, 2016, Star Tribune, By Adam Belz
"Rising From Poverty"

December 14, 2016, Vox, By Matthew Yglesias
"Rising Inequality Has Crushed the Dream of Upward Mobility"

December 10, 2016, The Los Angeles Times, By Melissa Etehad and Natalie Kitroeff
"American Dream Slips Out of Reach for Millennials"

December 10, 2016, The Atlantic, By Alana Semuels
"Severe Inequality is Incompatible With the American Dream"

December 9, 2016, The Associated Press, By Christopher S. Rugaber
"Americans' Odds of Earning More Than Parents Have Plunged"

December 9, 2016, CBS, By Jim Axelrod
"Report: Inequality is Making It Harder to Achieve American Dream"

December 9, 2016, NPR, By Bill Chappell
"U.S. Kids Far Less Likely to Out-Earn Their Parents, As Inequality Grows"

December 9, 2016, Forbes, By Lauren Gensler
"Only Half of America's 30-Year-Olds Are Making More than their Parents Did"

December 8, 2016, FiveThirtyEight, By Ben Casselman
"Inequality is Killing the American Dream"

December 8, 2016, The Washington Post, By Jim Tankersley
"American Dream Collapsing"

December 8, 2016, The Wall Street Journal, By Bob Davis
"Barely Half of 30-Year-Olds Earn More Than Their Parents"

December 8, 2016, The New York Times, By David Leonhardt
"The American Dream, Quantified at Last"

Childhood Environment and Gender Gaps in Adulthood

February 1, 2016, FiveThirtyEight, By Ben Casselman and Andrew Flowers
"Rich Kids Stay Rich, Poor Kids Stay Poor"

January 29, 2016, The Washington Post, By Emily Badger and Christopher Ingraham
"The Striking Power of Poverty to Turn Young Boys Into Jobless Men"

The Effects of Neighborhoods on Intergenerational Mobility

May 28, 2015, The New York Times, By Gregor Aisch, Amanda Cox and Kevin Quealy
"How Family Income Affects Children’s College Chances"

May 15, 2015, The New York Times, By David Leonhardt and Kevin Quealy
"How Your Hometown Affects Your Chances of Marriage"

May 11, 2015, The Washington Post, By Emily Badger
"What’s good for poor kids isn’t bad for rich ones"

May 8, 2015, Vox, By Matthew Iglesias
"Want to Help Poor Kids? Help Their Parents Move to a Better Neighborhood"

May 6, 2015, The Washington Post, By Emily Badger
"How Baltimore and Cities Like it Hold Back Poor Black Children as They Grow Up"

May 5, 2015, The Atlantic, By Derek Thompson
"The Curse of Segregation"

May 4, 2015, The New York Times, By Justin Wolfers
"Why the New Research on Mobility Matters: An Economist’s View"

May 5, 2015, The Washington Post, By Andrew Gelman
"Learning About Upward Mobility by Studying People who Moved in Childhood"

May 4, 2015, PBS Newshour
"Why the Place You Grow Up Can Limit Earning Power for Life"

May 4, 2015, NPR Morning Edition, By Jacob Goldstein
"Where Poor Kids Grow Up Makes A Huge Difference"

May 4, 2015, The New York Times, By David Leonhardt
"An Atlas of Upward Mobility Shows Paths Out of Poverty"

May 4, 2015, The New York Times
"Mapping the American Dream: The Best Places to Grow Up"

Is the United States Still a Land of Opportunity? Recent Trends in Intergenerational Mobility

January 23, 2014, NPR, By Jim Zarroli
"Study: Upward Mobility No Tougher in U.S. Than Two Decades Ago"

January 23, 2014, New York Times, By David Leonhardt
"Upward Mobility has not Declined, Study Says"

Where is the Land of Opportunity? The Geography of Intergenerational Mobility in the United States

March 28, 2017, Bloomberg View, By Megan McArdle
"How Utah Keeps the American Dream Alive"

November 19, 2014, Atlantic Monthly, By Derek Thompson
"Why It's So Hard for Millennials to Find A Place to Live and Work"

April 2, 2014, Washington Post, By Emily Badger
"Does Sprawl Matter for Social Mobility?"

March 3, 2014, Atlantic Monthly, By James Surowiecki
"The Mobility Myth"

January 26, 2014, The Atlantic, By Matthew O'Brien
"Why is the American Dream Dead in the South?"

August 1, 2013, Reuters, By Reihan Salam
"The Geography of Opportunity"

July 29, 2013 The New York Times, By Paul Krugman
"Stranded by Sprawl"

July 24, 2013, PBS Newshour, By Jeffrey Brown
"New Report Reveals Where You Live and Work Affects Your Economic Mobility"

July 23, 2013 NPR On Point, By Tom Ashbrook
"Upward Mobility"

July 22, 2013, Slate.com, By Matthew Yglesias
"In America, Where You're Born Has a Huge Impact on How Far You'll Go in Life"

July 22, 2013, The New York Times By David Leonhardt
"In Climbing Income Ladder, Location Matters" with Interactive map