US social mobility in one chart

The excellent Pew Economic Mobility Project is out with its latest numbers on US social mobility. This chart sums up the current state of US social mobility the best:

For those unacquainted with the terminology, the chart reads like this: The left column details the eventual economic outcomes of children born into the bottom 20% (quintile) of households. So, 43% of kids born into the bottom quintile remain in the bottom quintile as adults (the red), 27% move up into the next quintile (the light blue), 17% move into the middle quintile (the dark blue), 9% into the next quintile (the dark grey), and finally 4% into the highest quintile (the light grey). The next four columns repeat this process, but for children born into the other 80% of households, with each column representing a 20% slice of the income distribution.

Children born into the richest 20% of households are 10x more likely to be in the top 20% as adults than children born into the poorest 20% of households. This data is an inconvenient truth for the American Dream narrative that pretends everyone has an equal chance at success and failure.