Most of the Boots Don't Come with Straps

Despite the Horatio Alger bootstrap mythology and 43 percent of the public believing you get rich by hard work, ambition or education, most of the wealthy come preassembled not do-it-yourself, and tax policies make sure they stay that way.

The New York Times reports five recent studies found America's vaunted intergenerational economic mobility to be inferior to comparable countries.

One, a Pew Charitable Trusts survey, found 62 percent of Americans raised in the top fifth of incomes stay in the top two-fifths as adults and 65 percent raised in the bottom fifth remain in the bottom two-fifths, both much higher than in Canada and Western Europe. As for the middle fifth, 64 percent remain where they were raised; 12 percent rise and 24 percent slip downward.

A source of wealth study of the Forbes 400 richest Americans in 1997 uses a baseball analogy. Forty-eight percent started out life either on third base or crossing home plate having had the good fortune to select stupendously wealthy parents. Another 21 percent were born on first or second base, coming from the upper middleclass. Less than a third - mostly in entertainment and sports - began life in the working class batter's box. The vast majority of Americans didn't even have tickets for the game.

But hey, that's 31 percent of poor kids hitting homeruns. And good for them! The chances today are much more daunting given stagnant wages, tighter credit and diminishing government assistance. It also takes a lot more money to join the club. It took $475 million to make the cut in 1997. It was $1.05 billion in 2011.

That the U.S. economy is not bubbling up more billionaires from the bottom should serve as a warning that doors are being closed that need to be open. This is not just bleeding heart liberal fretting. Conservative think tanks also are concerned by the impact of stalled upward mobility on innovation, entrepreneurship, job creation and the American dream.

Of course many working and middle class youngsters are committed to rising above their station in life. The problem is most don't come with the support network Richie Rich does.

Their neighborhoods are a mixture of slackers and delinquents; their schools often mediocre; their experiences suffocate aspiration. If they get to college at all it's second-tier. They start out careers heavily in debt, sometimes pregnant, at lower paying jobs and without family resources and connections. Enterprise takes second place to surviving.

America needs to find ways - better schools, more scholarships, expanded childcare, etc. - to make-up for some of those top-fifth advantages if it wants to max out its potential in the talent race with our competition.