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7/22/2019 Americans Want to Live in a Much More Equal Country (They Just Don't Realize It) - Dan Ariely - The Atlantic

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The Pope's

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By Robert P. Jones

How America Lost

Vladimir Putin

By David Rohde and

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Where the Card

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DAN ARIELY AUG 2 2012, 12:41 PM ET

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We asked thousands of people to describe their ideal distribution of wealth,

from top to bottom. The vast majority -- rich, poor, GOP and Democrat - -

imagined a far more equal nation. Here's why it matters.

Reuters

The inequality of wealth and income in the U.S. has become an increasingly

prevalent issue in recent years. One reason for this is that the visibility of this

inequality has been increasing gradually for a long time-- as society has become

less segregated, people can now see more clearly how much other people make

and consume. Owing to urban life and the media, our proximity to one anotherhas decreased, making the disparity all too obvious. In addition to this general

trend, the financial crisis, with all of its fall out, shined a spotlight on the salaries

of bankers and financial workers relative to that of most Americans. And on top

of these, and most recently, the upcoming presidential election has raised

questions of social justice and income disparities, bringing the issues into focus

even more.

It is relatively easy to think about inequality as being too great or too little in

abstract terms, but ask yourself how much you really know about wealth

distribution in the U.S. For example, imagine that we took all Americans and

sorted them by wealth along a line with the poorest on the left and continuing as

wealth increases until on the right we have the richest. Now, imagine that we

divide them into five buckets with an equal number of citizens in each. The first

bucket contains the poorest 20% of the population, the next contains the second

wealthiest tier, and so on down to the wealthiest 20% (see Figure 1).

mericans Want to Live in a MuchMore Equal Country (They Just Don'tRealize It)

WRITERS

Robinson Meyer

The Song-as-Flowchart: It's Not Only Great,

It's Part of the TraditionAPR 18, 2014

Derek Thompson

College: Much Cheaper Than You Think

APR 18, 2014

James Fallows

Michael Janeway, and The Atlantic

APR 18, 2014

Alexis C. Madrigal

I Hate the Song-as-Flowchart Meme, and

Here's Why You Should, TooAPR 18, 2014

Ta-Nehisi Coates

Segregation ForeverAPR 18, 2014

Conor Friedersdorf

Umbrage as War by Other Means

APR 18, 2014

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In Focus

Battling for Control o f Eastern Ukraine
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current state of wealth? After all, wouldn't the rich want a higher degree of

inequality and the poor want a more ev en distribution of wealth?

HOW MUCH INEQUALITY DO YOU WANT?

We took a step back and examined social inequality based on the definition that

the philosopher John Rawls gave in his book A Theory of Justice. In Rawls'

terms, a society is just if a person understands all the conditions within that

society and is willing to enter it in a random place (in terms of socio-economic

status, gender, race, and so on). In terms of wealth, that means that people know

everything about the wealth distribution and are willing to enter that societyanywhere along the spectrum. They could be among the poorest or the richest,

or anywhere in between. Rawls called this idea the "veil of ignorance" because

the decision of whether to enter a particular society is disconnected from the

particular knowledge that the individual has about the level of wealth that he or

she will have after making the decision.

With this definition in mind, we did two things. First, we asked 5,522 people to

create a distribution of wealth among the five buckets such that they themselves

would be willing to enter that society at a random place. Their answers could

range from a perfectly even distribution with 20% of wealth in each quintile to a

fully biased distribution with 100% of wealth in one and 0% in the rest.

We found that the ideal distribution described by this representative sample of

Americans was dramatically more equal than exists anywhere in the world, with

32% of wealth belonging to the wealthiest quintile down to 11 % by the poorest

(see Figure 3).

What was particularly surprising about the results was that when we examined

the ideal distributions for Republicans and Democrats, we found them to be quite

similar (see Figure 4). When we examined the results by other variables,

including income and gender, we again found no appreciable differences. It seems

that Americans -- regardless of political affiliation, income, and gender -- want

the kind of wealth distribution shown in Figure 3, which is very different from

what we have and from what we think we have (see Figure 2).

1 The Confidence Gap

2 How America Lost Vladimir Putin

3 Resegregation in the American South

4 Where the Card Sharks Feed

5 The Pope in the Attic: Benedict in the Time

of Francis

6 The Private Lives of Public Bathrooms

7 The Culture of Shut Up

8 Pope Francis's Challenge to the Evangelical-

Catholic Coalition

9 Slimming Down Alone, Together

10 Does Traditional College Debate Reinforce

White Privilege?
http://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/04/does-traditional-college-debate-reinforce-white-privilege/360746/http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/04/slimming-down-alone-together/360710/http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/pope-franciss-challenge-to-the-evangelical-catholic-coalition/360755/http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/04/the-culture-of-shut-up/360239/http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/04/the-private-lives-of-public-bathrooms/360497/http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/05/the-pope-in-the-attic/359816/http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/05/where-the-card-sharks-feed/359807/http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/04/segregation-now/359813/http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/04/how-america-turned-putin-against-the-west/360921/http://www.theatlantic.com/features/archive/2014/04/the-confidence-gap/359815/http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/Figure3.png


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We understood that setting up an ideal wealth distribution is a rather difficult

proposition, so in another task, we made things simpler (see Figure 5) and asked

people to choose between two unidentified distributions (again under the veil of

ignorance). The first option, unbeknownst to participants, reflected the

distribution of wealth in America. For the second option we modified the

distribution found in Sweden, making it substantially more equal (we referred to

this fictional nation as "Equalden").

We discovered that 92% of Americans preferred the distribution of "Equalden"

to America's. And if one were to assume that the 8% who preferred America's

distribution was made up of wealthy Republican men, he or she would bemistaken. The preference for "Equalden" was slightly different for Republicans

and Democrats, and in the expected direction, but the magnitude was very small:

93.5% of Democrats and 90.2% of Republicans preferred the more equal

distribution. While this 3.3% difference is substantial when we think about the

economy of an entire country, if we look at it from the perspective of the gap

between Equalden and the U.S., it's clear that the similarity across the political

spectrum is far more substantial than the differences. And once again,

participant's gender and income lev el did not produce any appreciable difference

in this preference.

LEARNING FROM (THE VEIL OF) IGNORANCE

There are a few lessons that we can learn from this. The first is that we vastlyunderestimate the level of inequality that we have in America. Our society is far

more uneven in terms of wealth than we believe it is. Second, we want much

more equality than both what we have and what we think we have. Apparently,

when asked in a way that avoids hot-button terms, misconceptions, and the level

of wealth people currently possess, Americans are actually in agreement about
http://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/Figure5.pnghttp://cdn.theatlantic.com/static/mt/assets/business/Figure4.png


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wanting a more equal distribution of wealth. In fact, the vast majority of

Americans prefer a distribution of wealth more equal than what exists in

Sweden, which is often placed rhetorically at the extreme far left in terms of

political ideology- -embraced by liberals as an ideal society and disparaged by

conservatives as an overreaching socialist nanny state.

A third lesson concerns the political gap between Democrats and Republicans:

Given the extraordinarily polarized and derisive rhetoric flying back and forth

between Democrats and Republicans, one would think there was an

insurmountable gap between their positions. So how is it possible that we found

so little difference between them in our study? One reason for this could be our

inability to separate our ideology from our current state of wealth. Our interests

tend to color our view both of how things are and how they should be. Another

reason could be politicians, who, in order to rally people to their side, try to

generate feelings of greater difference and opposition--and therefore conflict--

than actually exist. From this perspective one could claim that politicians

obfuscate similarities by using galvanizing but elusive terms like "small

government," "tax relief," and "freedom."

Rawls' veil of ignorance deals with such superficial and irrelevant influences on

what we think by prompting people to consider all possible socio-economic

situations rather than just their own and the interests and ideologies that come

along with that. The veil of ignorance accomplishes something similar to blindtaste testing. Take wine, for instance. If a person knows the appellation and

price, and realizes that French wine is usually preferable to Finnish, his or her

perception and opinion of how good each wine tastes will be influenced by these

preconceived notions. Similarly, when we express opinions about politics and life

in general, we can't help but be influenced by our own varying degrees wealth

and ignorance of others' lives. T he veil of ignorance works to separate our core

beliefs from the biases and prejudices we develop over time and through the

subjective experience of being part of a certain class and demographic.

As for what this means about changing the level of inequality , which from our

study seems almost unanimously objectionable, there are essentially two paths:

education and taxation. Improving education works in a sense to change the

input into the economy--better-educated workers are more resourceful and

employable, and can move up the economic ladder. Changing taxation deals with

the output--those who prosper pay more into the system than those without the

same benefits. Our study doesn't tell us anything about which of these two

approaches to reducing inequality would be preferable, but in practical terms,

bridging the huge gap between what we currently have and what we want to

have would require a mixture of both. Our study also doesn't deal with how to

bring what people say they want under the veil of ignorance into line with what

they're willing to do when it's their money and resources that are about to be

distributed. It is one thing to get people to tell us what kind of society the would

want to join, and another to get them part with their money in order to create

that society.

With all these objections in mind, it still seems that the political discourse could

benefit from a Rawlsian approach. Taking this path could help us understand

what it is that we really want and then allow us to consider ways to get there. If

our politicians also accepted this starting point, they might argue less about

ideology and differences and more about paths to get closer to our common goal-

-a much less extreme level of inequality.

Social justice and optimal wealth distribution are highly complex topics, and it's

hard to imagine that any study could dramatically change opinions about

education, welfare, or tax reform. But consider this. When we ran the same basic

experiment in Australia, we found Australians did not differ much from

Americans in their views of the ideal distribution. When we ran another v ersion

of it with NPR listeners, and then readers ofForbesMagazine, the results were

still basically the same. And most likely, if y ou participated in one of our tests,

your response too would have fallen in line with these findings.

So whatever you think the current state of wealth distribution is, and whatever


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celeidth

Perhaps our view of the realities of the income/wealth distribution is warped because the

majority of us have so little experience with people who are vastly different from

ourselves. When we go to work, socialize with friends, go to religious services, shop,

vacation, or go home in the evenings we mostly encounter people like ourselves. We see

ourselves as the norm. And if we are in the middle of that income distribution we may be

especially insulated. People at the bottom often work in service jobs for the wealthiest--as

gardeners, house cleaners, etc.; they see the life at the top. A lot of us in the middle work

in jobs and live in neighborhoods where we only see people relatively like ourselves.

rsbsail

There is one huge problem with this article, and that is ignoring movement up or

down between the quintiles over time. Except for trust fund babies, most people

start out in life with no wealthto speak of, and some are net debtors (e.g., college

loans). As people grow older, their income grows, they are able to build a nest

egg, and they will move from one quintile to another. And then at the end of their

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8/15

e, ey are raw ng own e r savngs n re remen .

Of course, there are people like Buffett and Gates who have outsized fortunes

compared to "normal" people.

And there will be people who never move up from the lowest quintile because of

poor life choices, such as drug addiction, crime, or dropping out of school, or

single motherhood.

A more nuanced analysis would take this effect into account.

RobertSF

Others have done that analysis and concluded that there is less movement

between the quintiles than in any other developed country except Britain.

Every so often, we hear in the news that a homeless man died on the

streets from exposure to the elements. They make the news after they get

too drunk to come in from the cold and they're found frozen the next

morning. When was the last time one of those men turned out to be a

former Wall Streeter? We find plenty of forgotten war heroes, but among

the homeless you never find a formerly wealthy man.

JonF311

But that only applies to the bottomost quintiles mainly the loewstone. The middle and upper quintiles in the US have about as much

turnover as those quintiles do in other nations. In other words,

social mobility is mainly a problem of poverty in this country, not

something for the middle class to cry in its beer about. And our

woefully inadequate safety net is largely to blame: it keeps body and

soul together but does not help anyone escape poverty. In fact to

benefit from it you pretty much have to remain poor.

rdl114

Well, while I agree with your last statements, your initial ones are

off base. Wage stagnation and decline among the middle class has

been going on for decades now. It is documented and well a part of"common knowledge." The second and third quintiles (as put in this

article) have lost ground since the early to mid 1970s. Anyone on

the bottom edges of those cadres has indeed been slipping for

almost a lifetime now. So there is a lot of downward mobility. There

is some upward mobility. I think presenting the example of a "trust

fund baby" (as did rsbsail) distorts what relative wealth means.

Offspring who inherit an upper middle class or even solidly middle

class parent's wealth in and around major metropolitan areas have

an enormous boost in life somewhere around middle age, late

middle age. A paid off house or coop/condo in a big city or big city

suburb can be worth $1 million and up. On another front, debt, a

grandparent who can help a grandchild pay for college is doing an

immense service to that grandchild. These are not "trust funders,"

but people who have saved, been in the professions, and keep

financial ties in their family very strong. The poor struggle with

family ties, and certainly large transfers of wealth (by my slightly

upper middle class sensibilities) are not part of the equation of the

lower two quintiles.

JonF311

There have been studies blogged about right here on the Atlantic,

and by Derek Thompson who is anything but a rightwing stooge,

showing that American income mobility for the middle class and

above is about the same as it is in other countries. The "stagnation"

of the American middle class is not unique: it is a worldwide trend.

One need only consider the woes of present-day Europe and Japan

to see this reality.

And yes, "income mobility" encompasses both upward and

downward mobility".

But for the third time now: this is not about the middle class. The

middle class ma be in rou h waters but the are still afloat. It's the
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9/15

poor who are drowning, and in that we do resemble a third world

country more than we do our peers.

sansculottes

The fact that he's not a rightwing stooge is irrelevant. The question

is whether one contrarian blog post by one staff writer outweighs

thoroughly-researched and vetted books by people like Timothy

Noah and Joseph Stiglitz.

JonF311

Please, please, please reread what I have written above. No one is

doubting the American class mobility AS A WHOLE is inferior to

that of our peer nations. However when you drill into the details it

turns out that this is mainly a problem of the poor and the working

poor being stuck. That's all that is being said here. Likewise no one

is doubting that the "Great Stagnation" is also real. However that

same trend is affecting our peer nations too-- their middle class is

stagant or worse just like ours. The sun does not rise in the Atlantic

and set in the Pacific and the adverse trends that beset the US are

in fact global trends affecting everyone.

Also, be careful what you mean by "stganation" here. There are two

very different claims being mixed up in this discussion. One is thatpeople, on the whole, are doing no better than their parents did at

an equivalent point in their lives, rather than exceeding their parents

standard of living, which was the trend for much of our history

(outside a few nasty depressions). This is absolutely true. The

other trend is that people are not doing better as they age: that they

stay at the same income from the day they start work. That is

simply not true for all but the lowest income workers.

sansculottes

I have re-read it, and you are wrong. As I said, you are citing a blog

post by an Atlantic author to contradict what has been written by

economists and journalists who have spent the last several years

researching this topic.

Shelby M. Mallett

That could be on reason you don't find them homeless. Another

reason is that when they fall, they don't fall all the way down, they

can be a few steps up from

homeless. http://SponsoredbyApple.blogsp...

David Shedlock

Wage stagnation is measured collectively and does not take into

consideration people who change jobs and move up. You missed

the whole point of mobility, it is not that suddenly janitors are paid

the same as CEOs, it is that janitors and low-level employees

sometimes do end up in management or executive positions. This

cannot be shown statistically. It is not as if most CEOs came right

out of college and became one. They worked their way up.

RobertSF

They measure social mobility by comparing across generations

and seeing how the fortunes of each family rise and fall.

charliebernstein

Please. We cry in our cosmos.

Babby

they move because people are nibbling at the edges
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10/15

htaylor

A lot of the formerly wealthy have committed suicide. That could be

on reason you don't find them homeless. Another reason is that

when they fall, they don't fall all the way down, they can be a few

steps up from homeless.

pchi67

Reference, please?

htaylor

Gonna have to trust me on that. Unfortunatetely, I am talking about

friends, neighbors, and former clients. The "wealthy" don't have it

easy either in this economy, they just suffer in different ways.

ministerial

I wouldn't call your argument a "straw man" precisely, and I'm sure

you're telling the truth, but anecdotes are a dull sword vs. the

demography beast.

I have a very diverse selection of friends, I travel allll over the U.S.

frequently, and lemme tell ya, my anecdotes are right in line withthe data here. It's a LOT tougher on the bottom, and the bottom is

falling out of the bottom a LOT faster.

Remember Einsteins quote "compound interest is the most

powerful force in the universe"? The poor brave a constant chop

of compound penalty that churns into a vicious whirlpool at

he slightest breeze from a missed paycheck or middling

illness.

This compound penalty manifests a million ways. I can detail them

further if you like.

If a rich man ets sucked down he was either ver ill-e ui ed to

htaylor

I don't disagree with what you say, but I do find it to be surprisingly

cold and callous. When the rich fall off their perches, it could have

been for a number of reasons. What makes a person who has

always been poor so much easier to feel compassion for than a

person who has fallen into the recently poor?

stev

You are cold and callous regarding poor income distribution in US

and want sympathy for millionaires. That's a good one.

RobertSF

But it's really rare for the rich to fall of their perches. When you hear

about it, it's almost always the nouveau riche, like football players

and one-hit TV stars. Sadly, it's criminal how people with so little

understanding of finances are showered with money and then left

to be eaten alive by their "advisors." You hear of people who were

worth hundreds of millions now depending on a disability or pension

check. But that's a whole nother topic.

But aside from from people like that, which wealthy wind up on the

streets? They don't because, like someone else said, their wealthis backstopped. They always keep enough wealth in ultra-safe

vehicles (they may even pay fees instead of collecting interest!) so

that, barring total global nuclear war or something like that, they

cannot sink.
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11/15

JSebastian

If only that were true. Look at the spectrum of victims wiped out by

the Madoff scandal, or people that have been forced into liquidation

by creditors or the government (for example, many family farm

operators who had millions of dollars in assets that wind up getting

sold for pennies on the dollar at auction to Big Ag because the

government decided they needed to pony up 55% estate taxes).

Roger Corbin

Most of the wealth in this country is the "nouveau rich", I did somecalculations on the Forbes 100 and over 60 percent of the wealth

has been earned in the last 30 years in high tech, the internet, and

high tech finance/hedge funds. High tech and finance salaries in

corporate america had to adjust to salaries and opportunities in

startups, high tech and hedge funds. Much of our

wealth disparity in the US is the result of out sized opportunities in

high tech the US and lack of competitiveness in manufacturing in

the US. Our education system can be blamed for much of this. It

won't take long before the entrepreneurs leave for places with a

more competitive business climate. The choice is whether you

want more wealth disparity here or you want the wealth disparity to

move elsewhere.

ministerial

I really want to answer this clearly as possible.

First off, "cold and callous" applies only to my footnote, status

seekers. I'm reasonably sympathetic to other rich folks who've

fallen low, but overt status-seeking at the expense of humanism &

pragmatism is FOUL. It's one of the worst bits of human nature. I

can explain my thesis in detail if you like.

Suffice it to say: I own my coldness and callousness towards idiot

status-seekers. I am proud of it.

On to your main question:

Please go back and reskim my post, because the answer you're

looking for is implied up there. It will inform what follows. Also,

please note that I ain't the 1%, but I'm probably the 5%. 7%? Not

sure. I am way too hedonistic to be 1%. Money is a tool, not how I

keep score. Further note: I know a shitload of poor people & middle

class people too.

Juvens

Excellent post. Righteous, even. I agree completely.

htaylor

I came up from the streets like you did, and if I had to I could live

there again. Not that I'd want to, but I have no doubt that I could.

Many of my friends, neighbors, and clients who are suddenly poor

or eking out a lower middle class existance for the first time in their

lives are like fish out of water. Life as they knew it for 45 years is

gone. Whether they were suddenly unfortunate or long-term stupid

is irrelevant, except for those so distraught at what they have

stupidly pissed away that they kill themselves in response.

Ive been involved with many businesses that have had to shut

down. The lower level employees will be hit the hardest because

they tend not to have savings or a lot of other employmentprospects, but for them it was just a job, and they hope to find

another. For the upper level employees, it was their career, their

identity, their way of life, the thing they spent more waking hours

with than their family. You can see their personalities crumbling as

they walk out the door for the last time. Economically, they should
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12/15

. ,

them are hosed, because they know that a 40 - 60 year old guy

who looses his job in this economy is most likely not going to ever

have that income stream or status level again.

ministerial

I didn't come up from the streets actually. Upper middle & lucky.

Rather I fell down to them for a good while.

The best thing I learned is this: I could be poor and live lazy and

ine... assuming I had about 60k & normal possessions tocushion the drop. Gist:

========

1. 10k for an acre or two.*

2. 7k for a small prefab cabin.**

3. 10k for well, utilities & septic.**

=========

1-3 are the lever that I NEVER see used. And it's SUCH a

powerful lever. Housing is what, about $800 minimum a month for

1/2 people? More? 8x12= $9600. 27 / 9.6 = roughly 3. This

means anyone who does not live in/near a big city or tony outdoor

mecca can be DONE with housing costs in < THREE YEARS

(repairs notwithstanding.) It ain't Versailles, but a little house is

LeBoondocks

If you had $60K laying around, you were not poor.

JSebastian

Making 250K doesn't make one rich. That's just an income level.

In Manhattan, or in the SF Bay Area, that affords a modest middle

class lifestyle for a family of four. Those people will never be rich.

You have to look at accrued wealth. If you don't have financial

independence, then your fate is not very much in your hands no

matter what. And even then, shit happens. Macro shit that can wipe

that wealth out.

Mainz05

Correct, much more attention needs to be paid to wealth vs.

income, especially when education and investments of all kinds

are so highly leveraged for the non-wealthy. This has big

implications for the tax system, including but not limited to arguing

in favor of consumption, rather than income, tax as the primary

basis of revenue.

OhioSteve

If you have a blog, please tell us. I would absolutely read it. Very

few people are able to be smart enough to exit the conveyer belt

mentality of life (what you are describing as expectations) and

independently decide what they want/think, but also grounded and

normal enough not to be a tinfoil hat, black helicopter nutter. I like

your take and would read more of it.

Petrova

It's the government's policies that are

to blame for that.

Petrova

It's the government's policies that are

to blame for that.
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13/15

JSebastian

That's just a fallacy. The rich might be less susceptible to extreme

poverty just owing to the fact that petty cash supplies them with

more reserves than most lower class people have in life savings,

but it doesn't mean they can't be bankrupted and left with a small

fraction of their wealth, it happens all the time. Not only do many

rich suffer from the same combinations of personal defects and

flaws that subject their lives to financial turmoil, like substance

problems, mental illness, but they are also far more likely to be

victimized by unscrupulous business associates,

swindled/embezzled/sued, etc.

stev

Why should anyone trust you when you can't supply the data while

ranting for benefit of oligarchy. In fact no one should trust you.

htaylor

Dont trust anyone. Don't let go of your dogma. Ignorance is bliss,

you must be one happy person.

stev The best people to trust would be those that lobby for oligarchy's

benefit and unable to produce any evidence!!

htaylor

I am not lobbying for anyone. I am simply marveling at your

selective compassion. A homeless person who meets some

criteria deserves your sympathy, but a person who fell on hard

times through different routes continues to earn your scorn. You

are as hypocritical as the Christians who hate others in the name of

Christ.

stev

What are you ranting about! Does Mr. Trump who has been

bankrupted multiple times and yet using various methods to

defraud people to steal their investment need my sympathy?

htaylor

We can all pick examples to fit any arguement we want to make. I

don't think I can pry your mind open even a little, and have lost

interest. Bye.

stev

Skipping town after losing the argument I see.

danariely

http://www.people.hbs.edu/mnor...

stev

If they do that would be because without their wealth they would

be as good as homeless.

htaylor

Without our wealth we are all as good as homeless. The difference

between librals and conservatives isn't how much they care, it is

how they go about solving the problems. Keeping people

dependent and addicted to government prolongs their pain as much

as it helps them.
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14/15

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stev

You are ranting because wealth does not disappear with better

distribution. Watch this video and you will understand how it works

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

Ken Reese

Sorry but "I know a guy who knows a guy who's rich brother in law

killed himself" arguments are kinda well, useless.

RandolphOfRoanoke

The other developed countries are much smaller and more

homogenous than America. A fair comparison would be with

mobility among quintiles in the European Union, not with mobility in

Switzerland. I suspect that in that comparison America isn't doing

so badly.

stev

Homogenous is a race-baiting code word, isn't it.

kmihindu

This makes a lot of sense - especially considering the difficulty the

EU has in dealing with member countries facing economic crises

(Spain, Greece, Portugal). This also highlights the difficulty in

dealing politically with inequality in a more heterogenous group. The

US might have an edge here as our American identity seems to be

stronger than member nations "EU" identity.

RobertSF

Well, if the US is too big, why don't we compare mobility among

quintiles from the individual states against quintiles from the

individual countries in the European Union? Sweden and Georgiahave about the same populations.

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http://blog.longreads.com/post/the-top-5-longreads-of-the-week-12/http://blog.longreads.com/post/darfur-and-a-web-of-lies/http://blog.longreads.com/post/when-instruments-are-replaced-by-computer-software/http://longreads.com/http://www.nationaljournal.com/hotline-on-call/look-who-s-back-where-mitt-romney-is-lending-campaign-help-in-2014-20140418http://www.nationaljournal.com/politics/a-conspiracy-theory-for-everyone-in-new-clinton-docs-20140418http://www.nationaljournal.com/white-house/president-obama-just-signed-a-ted-cruz-bill-into-law-20140418http://www.nationaljournal.com/http://qz.com/200622/ordinary-americans-are-powerless-but-the-us-isnt-really-an-oligarchy/http://qz.com/200885/thousands-of-chinese-spent-their-best-years-making-nike-shoes-and-now-have-no-pensions/http://www.qz.com/http://www.theatlanticcities.com/politics/2014/04/will-bill-de-blasio-actually-ban-new-yorks-famous-carriage-horses/8921/http://www.theatlanticcities.com/design/2014/04/transforming-empty-sky-between-buildings-elaborate-doodles/8922/http://www.theatlanticcities.com/http://www.thewire.com/technology/2014/04/saudi-arabia-prepares-to-build-the-worlds-tallest-building/360936/http://www.thewire.com/entertainment/2014/04/watch-clippers-star-blake-griffin-accidentally-douses-a-fan-with-water/360937/http://www.thewire.com/http://disqus.com/RobertSF/http://disqus.com/kmihindu/http://disqus.com/tstev/http://disqus.com/RandolphOfRoanoke/http://disqus.com/facebook-100001112749290/http://disqus.com/tstev/https://disqus.com/websites/?utm_source=theatlantic&utm_medium=Disqus-Footerhttp://disqus.com/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_Union_populationhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_populationshttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZ7LzE3u7Bwhttp://redirect.disqus.com/url?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.smartasset.com%2Fbank-accounts%2Fchecking-faq%3Futm_source%3DDisqus%26utm_medium%3Dcpc%26utm_campaign%3DChecking_Disqus%3A1Wbrlf%3ANWRS35zFWcJxMKQDrFkJX6_lTGg&imp=7dge3mmi4j5uh&prev_imp&forum_id=292591&forum=theatlantic&thread_id=789930633&major_version=midway&bin=embed%3Apromoted_discovery%3Aheadline%3Asafetylevel%3Aactive&zone=promoted_discovery&advertisement_id=135713&brand=SmartAsset&headline=4%20Reasons%20to%20Buy%20a%20Checking%20Accounthttp://redirect.disqus.com/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.yourjewishnews.com%2F2014%2F03%2Fw8985.html%3A1Wbrlf%3At1xHMhKQsaRrWDUKbn7sLT8YWfM&imp=7dge3mmi4j5uh&prev_imp&forum_id=292591&forum=theatlantic&thread_id=789930633&major_version=midway&bin=embed%3Apromoted_discovery%3Aheadline%3Asafetylevel%3Aactive&zone=promoted_discovery&advertisement_id=131433&brand=YJNews&headline=Man%20who%20unexpectedly%20changed%20his%20business%20trip%20plans%20finds%20his%20wife%20in%20bed%20with%20his%20workerhttp://redirect.disqus.com/url?url=http%3A%2F%2F9nl.com%2Fdisq13%3A1Wbrlf%3ADwqlubrsTqE2jvFqAAzi56YVc-8&imp=7dge3mmi4j5uh&prev_imp&forum_id=292591&forum=theatlantic&thread_id=789930633&major_version=midway&bin=embed%3Apromoted_discovery%3Aheadline%3Asafetylevel%3Aactive&zone=promoted_discovery&advertisement_id=122848&brand=TravelPony&headline=The%20Secret%20Way%20to%20Save%20Hundreds%20of%20Dollars%20on%205-star%20hotelshttp://redirect.disqus.com/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fchildsupportnews.com%2Fman-who-had-30-kids-with-11-women-overwhelmed-by-child-support%2F%3A1Wbrlf%3A3GroP4pSIRL9XIn3nxEzI5BpXWU&imp=7dge3mmi4j5uh&prev_imp&forum_id=292591&forum=theatlantic&thread_id=789930633&major_version=midway&bin=embed%3Apromoted_discovery%3Aheadline%3Asafetylevel%3Aactive&zone=promoted_discovery&advertisement_id=135528&brand=Child%20Support%20News&headline=Man%20Who%20Had%2030%20Kids%20With%2011%20Women%20Overwhelmed%20by%20Child%20Supporthttp://redirect.disqus.com/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fpolitics%2Farchive%2F2014%2F04%2Fike-winter-soldier%2F360857%2F%3AzFim9CIA9d9Fwrc58Zsgdzgwyvg&imp=7dge3mmi4j5uh&prev_imp&forum_id=292591&forum=theatlantic&thread_id=789930633&major_version=midway&bin=embed%3Apromoted_discovery%3Aheadline%3Asafetylevel%3Aactive&thread=2621185972&zone=internal_discoveryhttp://redirect.disqus.com/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fentertainment%2Farchive%2F2014%2F04%2Fdoes-it-matter-if-heaven-is-for-real%2F360845%2F%3Aaw_lMmFE6ThFA6gD4QVBajQDjws&imp=7dge3mmi4j5uh&prev_imp&forum_id=292591&forum=theatlantic&thread_id=789930633&major_version=midway&bin=embed%3Apromoted_discovery%3Aheadline%3Asafetylevel%3Aactive&thread=2621139418&zone=internal_discoveryhttp://redirect.disqus.com/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Fpolitics%2Farchive%2F2014%2F04%2Frepublicans-framing-climate-change%2F360911%2F%3AXN2Zf1n1WdysRjjyEtFFqZF23AI&imp=7dge3mmi4j5uh&prev_imp&forum_id=292591&forum=theatlantic&thread_id=789930633&major_version=midway&bin=embed%3Apromoted_discovery%3Aheadline%3Asafetylevel%3Aactive&thread=2622120658&zone=internal_discoveryhttp://redirect.disqus.com/url?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theatlantic.com%2Finternational%2Farchive%2F2014%2F04%2Fhow-america-turned-putin-against-the-west%2F360921%2F%3ArGFDHtDF08EW2eos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15/15

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americans want to live in a much more equal country (they just don't realize it) - dan ariely - the...

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