Visitors to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum (ALPM) in Springfield, Illinois risk drowning in American mythology.  The building consists mostly of rooms arranged chronologically.  Each room represents a major stage in Lincoln’s life, starting with the Kentucky log cabin where he was born.  The last exhibit is the Representatives’ Hall in Springfield's Old State Capitol where the 16th President's closed casket sits covered in flowers.  Here visitors can, in effect, pay their last respects to the man John Wilkes Booth assassinated.
After passing Lincoln’s coffin, the last stage of the tour, people leave the room and re-enter the museum’s spacious central receiving area.  As they emerge into the light, they will see the log cabin where the tour started.  The incredible social distance the museum’s namesake travelled in only fifty-six years is breathtaking.  The unmistakable message behind the museum and the other Lincoln sites in and around Springfield is that despite his meagre beginning, the 16th President’s vast accomplishments prove that America holds a bright future for everyone who works hard and persists.  If you fall short, you've only yourself to blame.  The ALPM is a government owned monument to the land of equal opportunity.
But is this really true?  In recent years, various researchers have described how the distribution of wealth affects the social mobility odds of lower class Americans.[1]  In the US, the top fifth of the population holds 84% of the country's wealth, while the second quintile owns 11%, the third 4%, the fourth 0.2%, and the bottom quintile 0.1%.[2]  The top 1% of American households possesses 36% of all private wealth, more than the bottom 90% combined.[3]  The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has reported that the lowest 20% of American households earned an average annual income of $20,510, while the top 20% received $164,490 – a 8-1 ratio.  These highest versus lowest quintile comparisons exceeded 8-1 in 15 of the nation’s 50 states.  In the late 1970s, not one state had a ratio greater than 8-1.[4]
Of the twelve most economically advanced countries, the US ranks tenth in intergenerational mobility, only slightly above Britain and Italy.[5]  Tom Hertz notes that during their lifetimes, American children born of low-earning families had a 1% chance of eventually having incomes in the highest 5% category, while children born of wealthy parents were 22 times more likely to earn incomes in this range.  Americans with middle class incomes were just slightly more upwardly mobile than their poorer counterparts were; only 1.8% of children born to families in the middle-income quintile eventually had earnings in the highest 5%.[6] READ MORE