The U.S. Income Distribution and Mobility: Trends and International Comparisons

"...The extent to which countries undertake policies that affect their income distributions may reflect
national differences in perceptions about the degree of income mobility. In the United States, a
longstanding argument against redistributionary measures has been that each person has an equal opportunity to move up the income ladder. Research raises questions about whether Americans’ reported perceptions about their likelihood of changing position in the income distribution are exaggerated."