Funny how wording can make a study into something it isn't. The study was actually conducted examining tax returns from 1996 to 2005 so it wasn't how many EVER moved up, it was how many moved up in a single decade. And in that decade, nearly 6 out of every 10 people living in the bottom 20% moved into a higher bracket. About 25% moved up to middle or upper middle class, and in ten years, over 5% of them moved from the bottom 20% to the top 20%.

For the next 20%, half moved up while only 17% moved down. And the only group that suffered more losses than gains was the top 1%. They lost over 25% of their income and nearly 6 in 10 of them fell into a lower income bracket.

And remember, this is ...

Funny how wording can make a study into something it isn't. The study was actually conducted examining tax returns from 1996 to 2005 so it wasn't how many EVER moved up, it was how many moved up in a single decade. And in that decade, nearly 6 out of every 10 people living in the bottom 20% moved into a higher bracket. About 25% moved up to middle or upper middle class, and in ten years, over 5% of them moved from the bottom 20% to the top 20%.

For the next 20%, half moved up while only 17% moved down. And the only group that suffered more losses than gains was the top 1%. They lost over 25% of their income and nearly 6 in 10 of them fell into a lower income bracket.

And remember, this is over the course of a single decade. Seems pretty amazing to me that 1 out of every 20 of the poorest 20% of Americans moved all the way into the top 20% in only ten short years. If that isn't mobility I don't know what is.

OK, .05 of Americans move from the poorest quintile to the richest during a decade. Good for them. But is that the big story here? Is that characteristic of people in America generally?

an incredible 42 percent of children born into that lowest quintile are still stuck at the bottom, having been unable to climb a single rung of the income ladder.

Now we're talking about numbers more characteristic of life in poverty. Four out of ten parents in poverty will not see their children escape it in any given decade. We're talking about fierce, degrading, hopeless poverty here, and we're talking about nearly a tenth of the American people.

Conservatism so often points to a few pr...

OK, .05 of Americans move from the poorest quintile to the richest during a decade. Good for them. But is that the big story here? Is that characteristic of people in America generally?

an incredible 42 percent of children born into that lowest quintile are still stuck at the bottom, having been unable to climb a single rung of the income ladder.

Now we're talking about numbers more characteristic of life in poverty. Four out of ten parents in poverty will not see their children escape it in any given decade. We're talking about fierce, degrading, hopeless poverty here, and we're talking about nearly a tenth of the American people.

Conservatism so often points to a few precocious achievers and says, ''See? The system works!" I find that utterly heartless. The obvious has been ignored: it does not work for tens of millions of Americans.

People at one end of the bell curve do excel in America. But there is a vast throng of average people who hang by a thread and live lives of illness, hunger, and despair.

I can only conclude that conservatism would rather live with a smug and self-righteous illusion, propped up by statistical exceptions, than be disturbed by the massive, tragic reality that is American life to millions.