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If you're referring the the US (that's the subject of the article in question), then recent studies suggest that there may not be a health flow in and out of the 2% [0, 1]. In fact, there seems to be significantly less social mobility in the US then in other developed countries, such as those in Europe.

0. http://ftp.iza.org/dp1938.pdf 1. http://www.pewstates.org/projects/economic-mobility-project-...

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If you look at the data in article [0] carefully, it becomes clear that the problem in US is not movement in/out of the highest quintile, but movement in/out of the lowest quintile. Middle quintiles to highest quintile and vice versa mobility in US looks similar to other countries.

Btw, they do not have much data for US or UK, only around 2000 parent-offspring pairs. And the conclusion that UK is on the same mobility level as Nordic countries is highly doubtful. UK mobility level is usually considered to be about the same as US mobility level.

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