Volume 2, Issue 6
Aug. 20, 2005

Is Reduced Social Mobility a Church Concern?
Historian Daniels Calls it Affront to Pentecost Event

By David W. Reid

Evidence that social mobility in the United States has slowed in recent years is an important concern for the church because of the church's overarching interest in seeing all human beings exercise their gifts and talents, says David D. Daniels III, of McCormick Theological Seminary, in Chicago .

A reading of Genesis reveals that God not only is the Creator but that everything that God created should grow and flourish in the ways that God designed, said Daniels, professor of church history in the seminary affiliated with the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). He is a member of the Church of God in Christ, a Pentecostal body.

Human flourishing can be read, in part, in what the Bible calls shalom or peace, said Daniels. This peace that God gives includes the flourishing of human life—politically, economically and socially.

“The church, which both promotes the peace of God and shares the peace of God, should be concerned … when that component of human flourishing is under assault,” said Daniels.

Prosperity Sliding

When The Wall Street Journal kicked off its recent seven-part series on “Moving Up: Challenges to the American Dream,” it started by reviewing trends in social mobility in the United States . After all, the idea that a person will be rewarded for his or her good efforts is at the heart of the American Dream.

In a Page 1 story published May 13, the Journal reported, “Despite the widespread belief that the U.S. remains a more mobile society than Europe, economists and sociologists say that in recent decades the typical child starting out in poverty in the continental Europe (or in Canada) has a better chance at prosperity.”

Miles Corak, an economist for Canada 's national statistical agency, looked at dozens of mobility studies in the United States , Canada and Europe . His conclusion: “The U.S. and Britain appear to stand out as the least mobile societies among the rich countries studied.” France and Germany are somewhat more mobile than the United States . Canada and the Nordic countries are much more mobile, the Journal reported.

A Federal Reserve Bank economist recently combined the government studies of social mobility with Social Security records for thousands of men born between 1963 and 1968 to see what they were earning in their late 20s and 30s. Only 14 percent of the men born to fathers on the bottom 10 percent of the wage ladder made it to the top 30 percent. Only 17 percent of the men born to fathers on the top 10 percent fell to the bottom 30 percent.

Inherited wealth appears to play a much larger role in social mobility than was previously thought.

In the mid-1980s, Nobel laureate Gary Becker, a University of Chicago economist, wrote that almost all earnings advantages or disadvantages are wiped out within three generations and that “Poverty would not seem to be a ‘culture' that persists for several generations.”

Becker found that only 20 percent of wealth advantage was passed from one generation to another, but he now acknowledges that better data and analysis are forcing a revision in his thinking.

As the Journal reported, “A substantial body of research finds that at least 45 percent of parents' advantage in income is passed along to their children, and perhaps as much as 60 percent.”

Ties to Pentecost

McCormick's Daniels noted that in addition to God's shalom, one reading of the Pentecost story—Jesus' reappearance 50 days after his resurrection—accents the fact that God creates space for people to use freely the gifts that God has given them and to use them across class, gender, linguistic and nationality lines.

Acts 2 tells of the strange occurrence in which people heard the disciples of Jesus preaching in numerous languages so that each person could hear the words in his or her native language.

The New Testament writers associated the events of Acts 2 with the words of the prophet Joel that are found in the Hebrew Bible. Joel said that God's Spirit would be poured out on male and female servants as well as on the wealthy.

They also associated Pentecost with Jesus' words in Acts 1:8 —“But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you.”

So when certain avenues of opportunity are blocked solely on the basis of wealth, said Daniels, “I think that is an affront to the Pentecost event.”

He continued: “A society that is open to this Pentecost event is a society that also says that God's other gifts—gifts of talent and intellect and labor—should be freely given and utilized. But you can't do that when there are roadblocks based on class or one's income.”

In the mid-20 th century, nearly any U.S. citizen could receive an excellent education in a state university. But now, said Daniels, one must be middle class to obtain that level of education, and the poor are often excluded.

Tolerating Inequality

Yet, as the Journal noted, shifts in economic clout have gone mostly unnoticed.

“Many Americans believe their country remains a land of unbounded opportunity,” the Journal reported. “That perception explains why Americans, much more than Europeans, have tolerated the widening inequality in recent years. It is OK to have ever-greater differences between rich and poor, they seem to believe, as long as their children have a good chance of grasping the brass ring.

“Technology, globalization and unfettered markets tend to erode wages at the bottom and lift wages at the top,” the Journal reported. “But Americans have elected politicians who oppose using the muscle of government to restrain the forces of widening inequality. These politicians argue that lifting the minimum wage or requiring employers to offer health insurance would do unacceptably large damage to economic growth.”

The New York Times put the growing inequality of incomes into perspective this spring as part of an 11-part series on issues of class in America . Among the more than 50,000 words the Times devoted to the topic of class are these from June 5:

“From 1950 to 1970, for example, for every dollar earned by the bottom 90 percent, those in the top 0.01 percent earned an additional $162, according to the Times analysis. From 1990 to 2002, for every extra dollar earned by those in the bottom 90 percent, each taxpayer at the top brought in an extra $18,000.”

In the same story, the newspaper noted that an Internal Revenue Service study found that the only taxpayers whose share of taxes declined in 2001 and 2002 were those in the top 0.1 percent.

More Than Economics

Daniels, the McCormick professor of church history, said churches need to help broaden the public discussion beyond macro-economics.

“The dominant part of the conversation has been how you can grow the gross national product,” he said. “But we should also figure out how we should grow social product. How do we create a society that again allows for human flourishing, that allows for human life to be not only sustained but to thrive?”

The church needs to come up with theological categories to describe goodness, excellence and prosperity, he said.

“There needs to be a theological analysis of those terms and theological engagement of those terms, and the church needs to interject those definitions into discussions in the public arena.

“Sometimes people will automatically think that you then must become a socialist with that kind of (agenda),” he said. “I don't think that's true. I think you begin to say that there are other questions that need to be asked and other categories that need to be introduced.”

The church has already started to ask questions of politicians about abortion, religious freedom and state funding of churches. Now, said Daniels, churches need to ask candidates about their social vision as well.