Upward Mobility and Class in America

Originally published in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, July 20, 2005, as an op-ed.

Teresa Toguchi Swartz, Douglas Hartmann

As Americans, we’d like to think that where or to whom you’re born is only a temporary status. With a little hard work, some gumption, and a bootstrap, we can be anyone we want to be. That certainly seems to be the case with a group of 20-somethings who grew up in St. Paul, whom our research group is interviewing in an effort to better understand how the transitions from adolescence to adulthood are unfolding today. These young adults believed for the most part that they were the authors of their lives and, if they were unhappy with the way things were going, that they could plan for and act to change things.

But is that really the case? Or does class matter in America? Consider this: Our findings show that in their early 20s, nearly two-thirds of young adults receive financial support from their parents, and 40% of those in their late 20s still receive assistance from parents in some form or another. However, and here is where class rears its head, young adults in the top one-fourth of family income categories receive three times more in material assistance than those in the bottom one-fourth. This occurs even though higher-income youth are only 10–15% more likely to attend college than low-income youth.

The importance of class was probably no more evident than in our interviews in St. Paul. While most, although not all, of the young Minnesotans we spoke with could count on their families for continued support as they established themselves, it was clear that those from more affluent families received significantly more financial help—for their education, rent, health and car insurance, and even down payments on homes—while their less well off peers spoke of struggling to pay for these or forgoing them altogether.

Consider Jake and Bo, two white 29 year olds who both attended St. Paul public schools. Following high school, Jake’s parents paid for his BA at William and Mary. After graduating, he attended a prestigious private law school on the East Coast, also financed by his parents. Bo, meanwhile, attended a local public university, which he felt was his only option because his mother could not afford to foot his education bills. Despite working substantial hours while attending college, he dropped out when he found himself having to go without food. Jake is now an attorney, while Bo has worked a series of manual and service jobs. Recently laid off, Bo has returned to community college, still hoping to someday earn his degree and land a well-paying job.

Yet despite these distinct trajectories, Bo remains optimistic that he can make a turnaround. Bo is not alone in this. Predictably, we found optimism over work and financial futures more prevalent for white, middle-class, and highly educated youth. But even those facing more challenges believed that hard work and determination would eventually pay off. As Bo said, “If I have to do something completely different tomorrow, as long as I’m willing and able to work at it, I think I’ll be fine.” The one concession for poor and working-class kids, it seemed, was to have reined in their aspirations; for example, hoping for a “clean” office job if they currently did manual labor or for increasing their commission from phone solicitations or bill collections.

On the whole, young people did not see their background and past experiences as determining their futures, and they viewed the world as offering them the chance to continually reshape their life through reflection, planning, goal-setting, and hard work. In short, the American Dream.

Indeed, the advantages of the private scaffolding that families provide their young adult children remain hidden, despite the very real inequities in material support that young adults from different classes receive from their parents. Relying on private families to deal with the many, larger structural changes (such as declining wages for males, higher housing costs, higher college tuition, more jobs that demand higher education) means that those with more resources will be better able to afford more—and a class divide will only widen. Without stronger safety nets, such as affordable health care, subsidized education (think GI Bill), school-to-work supports, and others, the optimism and can-do spirit of Bo and his peers may quickly disappear.


Teresa Toguchi Swartz, Ph.D., is Assistant Professor of Sociology, University of Minnesota. Swartz is the author of Parenting for the State (Routledge Press, 2005). Doug Hartmann is Associate Professor of Sociology, at the University of Minnesota, and is the author of Race, Culture, and the Revolt of the Black Athlete: 1968 Olympic Protests and their Aftermath (University of Chicago Press, 2003).