This statistic is from the DIW, a German think-tank which is known for it's left leaning/biased views. It cost them their membership in the country's "council of economic experts" once.
PS: That doesn't mean that the claim is false. But you could - as is often the case - draw different conclusions from the data. E.g. that the European countries have heavy welfare and tax burdens that reduce social mobility and the chances of earning private wealth through work.
> E.g. that the European countries have heavy welfare and tax burdens that reduce social mobility and the chances of earning private wealth through work.
I agree with the general principle, but the US has lower social mobility IIRC than most of the EU countries. My current model is that whatever flaws our model has are currently dominating Europeans' reduction of social mobility.
Given how much better we integrate immigrants (especially in the parts of the economy that are high growth, like urban coasts), I wonder how much US social mobility is overstated. We didn't have a lot of money when I was growing up and my sister and I are both in a pretty high percentile of income, so we'd certainly show up as a data pt of social mobility. But my parents are upper class in "the old country", they both have master's degrees, and their kids' income relative to their human capital isn't really a central example of social mobility.
PS: That doesn't mean that the claim is false. But you could - as is often the case - draw different conclusions from the data. E.g. that the European countries have heavy welfare and tax burdens that reduce social mobility and the chances of earning private wealth through work.