Policies to promote Upward Mobility for the working class and poor (the series)

A Table of Contents with links to a series of articles on this topic.

Make someone’s day: Gift a subscription to your friends and family!

---

This article provides a Table of Contents to all the public policy proposals that I have made to promote Upward Mobility for the working class and poor in wealthy nations. Note that I also have far more articles on the concept of Upward Mobility. This article only lists the specific policy proposals.

What is Upward Mobility?

Upward Mobility is the increased material standard of living that a person experiences throughout their adult working lives. This increased material standard of living for an individual is caused by a combination of:

1. Long-term economic growth for the society they live within (material progress);

2. The person’s talent (shaped by genetics, upbringing, and education);

3. Critical Life Choices — education, acqiring job skills, relocation, marriage, and parenting;

4. Long-term work effort; and

5. Random luck (both good and bad).

Upward Mobility is to the individual what Progress is to the entire society — the long-term increase in the material standard of living of an individual, while Progress is the long-term increase in the material standard of living of a large group of people (typically I focus on nations and sub-national minorities).

Upward Mobility for the individual is about both societal factors and individual choice. Government policies can influence both, and this series shows how. Unlike the goals of Equality or Status, Upward Mobility is not zero-sum — when many people make wise Life Choices and work hard, it increases material progress for everyone else in society.

I also have separate series on:

• Promoting increased material progress in developing nations.

• Promoting material progress in wealthy nations.

---

Table of Contents:

1. Why Progress and Upward Mobility should be the goal, not Equality

2. The Pathway to Success (part one, part two, and part three) ($)

3. Overhauling the American welfare state:

   1. The case for Upward Bound accounts ($)

   2. The case for a Working Family Tax Credit ($)

   3. We should phase out means-tested social programs ($)

4. Why we need more vocational education ($)

5. Making health care affordable:

   1. Employer health insurance plans should be voluntary ($)

   2. Medical treatment should have transparent prices and open competition ($)

6. Making housing affordable:

   1. The Deadly Dozen: The Zoning Laws That Hurt Housing the Most

   2. How to make housing affordable again ($)

   3. Can a Land Value tax make housing affordable? ($)

   4. We need a Homestead Act 2.0

---

If you enjoyed reading this series of articles, you might also be interested in reading my “From Poverty to Progress” book series: