Some amazing findings on income mobility in the US including this: the image of a static 1 and 99 percent is false - AEI

Some amazing findings on income mobility in the US including this: the image of a static 1 and 99 percent is false - AEI: 
"In a 2014 New York Times article titled “From Rages to Riches to Rags” Washington University professor of social welfare Mark Rank presented some amazing and striking findings on income mobility in America, here’s a slice (my emphasis):

The picture drawn of the 1 percent has been that of a static population, just as the 99 percent is often portrayed as unchanging. There is a line drawn between these two groups, and never the two shall cross. But is it the case that the top 1 percent of the income distribution are the same people year in and year out? Or, for that matter, what about the top 5, 10 and 20 percent? To what extent do everyday Americans experience these levels of affluence, at least some of the time?

In order to answer such questions, Thomas A. Hirschl of Cornell and I looked at 44 years of longitudinal data regarding individuals from ages 25 to 60 to see what percentage of the American population would experience these different levels of affluence during their lives. The results were striking.

It turns out that 12 percent of the population will find themselves in the top 1 percent of the income distribution for at least one year. What’s more, 39 percent of Americans will spend a year in the top 5 percent of the income distribution, 56 percent will find themselves in the top 10 percent, and a whopping 73 percent will spend a year in the top 20 percent of the income distribution (see those statistics displayed in the chart above)..."

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