White House

Making Our Economy Work for Every Working American

President Barack Obama delivers remarks on economic mobility during an event hosted by the Center for American Progress

President Barack Obama delivers remarks on economic mobility during an event hosted by the Center for American Progress at Town Hall Education Arts Recreation Campus in Washington, D.C., Dec. 4, 2013.

(Official White House Photo by Chuck Kennedy)

Today in Southeast Washington, DC, President Obama spoke about what he called the defining challenge of our time: reversing a decades-long slope toward growing inequality and a lack of upward mobility. It's a trend that has jeopardized middle-class America’s basic bargain, the idea that if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead.

In the years after World War II, America built the largest middle class the world has ever known, President Obama said. 

[D]uring the post-World War II years, the economic ground felt stable and secure for most Americans, and the future looked brighter than the past.  And for some, that meant following in your old man’s footsteps at the local plant, and you knew that a blue-collar job would let you buy a home, and a car, maybe a vacation once in a while, health care, a reliable pension.  For others, it meant going to college — in some cases, maybe the first in your family to go to college.  And it meant graduating without taking on loads of debt, and being able to count on advancement through a vibrant job market. 

“Everyone’s wages and incomes were growing,” President Obama said “And because of upward mobility, the guy on the factory floor could picture his kid running the company some day.”

But by the late 1970s, this social compact began to unravel as jobs began to disappear and our economic foundation weakened. Inequality started to grow, and it got harder for children of lower-income families to move upward. Today, a family in the top 1 percent has a net worth 288 times higher than the typical family. And a child born in the top 20 percent has about a 2-in-3 chance of staying at or near the top, while a child born into the bottom 20 percent has a less than a 1-in-20 shot at making it to the top. 

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Fonte: White House

Como citar e referenciar este artigo:
NOTÍCIAS,. Making Our Economy Work for Every Working American. Florianópolis: Portal Jurídico Investidura, 2013. Disponível em: https://investidura.com.br/noticias-internacionais/white-house/making-our-economy-work-for-every-working-american/ Acesso em: 05 jul. 2025
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