Despite a highly partisan crowd of voters, Ed defeats the IQ2 Motion: “Income Inequality Impairs the American Dream of Upward Mobility.” Thirty percent of the voters moved to Ed’s side of the motion—one of the largest swings in the history of IQ2. Here and below are Ed’s opening and closing remarks.
Against the IQ2 Motion “Income Inequality Impairs the American Dream of Upward Mobility”:
If income inequality truly impaired mobility, there would be telltale signs:
- Growing inequality would have reduced mobility. It hasn’t. Even Emanuel Saez, of the liberal Piketty and Saez duo, admits, the chance of a low-income child reaching any higher level of income has increased.
- Economies with more equally distributed incomes would have greater mobility. They don’t. Even Miles Corak, whose findings the Obama Admiration claimed underpinned their infamous “Great Gatsby Curve,” admits, there are “almost no differences in upward mobility between Canada, Sweden, and the U.S.”
- Transferring more money to the poor would increase mobility. It hasn’t.
- Spending more money on education would increase test scores. It hasn’t.
We may not know how to increase mobility, but we do know that growing prosperity raises the living standards of the poor.
This isn’t really a debate about whether inequality impairs mobility. It’s really about whether the success of America’s top-earners hurts the middle and working class.
Our opponents see the economy as a pie to be divided. Read More→
