In almost all discussions of social mobility, the measure is intergenerational mobility (do you end up in the same socioeconomic class as your parents), not if you made more later in your career than when you started. Almost everyone makes more later in their career than when they started, that's not a sign of upward social mobility (at least not on an intergenerational level).
For some reason, you cherry picked the one study that looked at all incomes in one of the most prosperous periods in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-economic_mobility_in_the... does a good job of summarizing a number of studies that show that the US ranks as one of the least socially mobile countries in the world.
No one is arguing that people make the same amount their entire career. That's not what social mobility is. The fact is, the US has one of the lowest levels of intergenerational social mobility, and that exceptions to the rule are held up as evidence of The American Dream in action. It's not impossible to end up better off than your parents (in relative inflation adjusted terms), but that's the exception, and it's usually due much more to luck than hard work. Millions of americans work hard and end up exactly where their parents were.
All I'm saying is that a claim that "there is almost no social mobility in the US" is not backed up by the data. I'm not saying "everything is fine" or that we shouldn't do things to improve the situation.
You're saying that because most people make more money later in their career that the US doesn't have an issue with upward social mobility. That comes from a fundamentally flawed notion you have of what everyone else means when they say social mobility.
The fact is, most people end up in the same socioeconomic class as their parents. There are exceptions to the rule, but upward social mobility happens so infrequently in the US, that it's perfectly reasonable to model that as almost never happening. It's not impossible, it just almost never happens. The bigger problem is that the few counterexamples are used as anecdotal evidence to say "if everyone else would have just tried as hard, they'd be better off too". That's simply not true.
You're saying that because most people make more money later in their career that the US doesn't have an issue with upward social mobility.
No, that's not what I'm saying at all. But you seem determined to intentionally misinterpret what I'm saying, and this conversation isn't doing anything to benefit me, so I'm bowing out.
For some reason, you cherry picked the one study that looked at all incomes in one of the most prosperous periods in the US. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socio-economic_mobility_in_the... does a good job of summarizing a number of studies that show that the US ranks as one of the least socially mobile countries in the world.
No one is arguing that people make the same amount their entire career. That's not what social mobility is. The fact is, the US has one of the lowest levels of intergenerational social mobility, and that exceptions to the rule are held up as evidence of The American Dream in action. It's not impossible to end up better off than your parents (in relative inflation adjusted terms), but that's the exception, and it's usually due much more to luck than hard work. Millions of americans work hard and end up exactly where their parents were.