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Abby S is a mother of two from Boston.

For my kids, um, I’m nervous. I don’t know if it’s given that they’ll be able to achieve their American dream.

She may be right. More than hard work and education. The best way to get rich in America is to be born rich.

It is the case that somebody who is in the upper third of income who scores in the bottom, a test when they are in eighth grade. It’s more likely to go to college and finish college than a, a poor kid with the top scores, that’s what the working persons’ children are up against.

The think tank at the Economic Policy Institute finds it’ll take a poor coupe with two children 9 or 10 generations to achieve middle class status, that’s about 200 years. The hallmark of American opportunity has always been the ability to do better than your parents. But compared with similar developed counties, the United States ranks 5th out of 6 for so-called intergenerational mobility.

If you look at the mechanisms for upward mobility that was so readily available 50 years ago, 25 years ago. They’ve become further out of reach.

Like Ford’s factory jobs with good wages and affordable education and health care and white families are twice as likely as blacks to be upwardly mobile. For most people in America today where you end up depends on where you start.

If you start at the middle-income class now about 48-45% what’s your making right now is due to the fact that your parents were in the middle-income class. The rest is up to you.

He sides with those who believe this economy is creating opportunities for everyone. But for the millions of people who find themselves below the poverty line and millions more who are the working poor, their starting point for the American dream leads them painfully far away from the middle class.

Christine Romans CNN, New York.