“A major new look at the trends and issues impacting economic opportunity for Americans was released today by the Economic Mobility Project, an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts. Getting Ahead or Losing Ground: Economic Mobility in America, is authored by three Brookings Institution scholars, Julia B. Isaacs, Isabel V. Sawhill and Ron Haskins and includes new chapters on education, wealth, international comparisons and trends over time. These, combined with previously released chapters on gender, race, immigration and families, comprise the entire volume…In the generation immediately following World War II, strong economic growth in the U.S. spurred a rise in absolute economic mobility. Over the last generation however, the combination of slowing economic growth and rising inequality has increased the importance of relative mobility, or movement between the ranks, in America. The hope that increased opportunity would offset the effects of slower growth or more unequal incomes is not supported by most of the evidence. Although the research base is limited and the studies do not all agree, taken as a whole, the current literature does not suggest that the rate of relative mobility has changed much since about 1970. If anything, relative mobility may have declined.”