Economic Opportunity and Mobility

Early childhood, education, employment, intergenerational mobility

While poverty is at an all-time low, intergenerational mobility has stalled. COSM explores ways to close mobility gaps faced by disadvantaged groups through early childhood, education, and employment policies.

Re-Centering Family Structure in Opportunity Insights’ Work on Intergenerational Mobility: How Important Is Single Parenthood?

March 20, 2026 | Scott Winship and Mariana Icaza Díaz

Over the past decade, Opportunity Insights (OI) has transformed the study of intergenerational mobility through innovative uses of administrative data, reshaping the public and scholarly understanding of the factors that affect children’s life prospects. One consistent finding in this literature is the strong association between family structure, especially single parenthood, and upward mobility, though it has received relatively little sustained attention.

American Renewal: A Conservative Plan to Strengthen the Social Contract and Save the Country’s Finances

November 17, 2022 | Paul Ryan and Angela Rachidi

The purpose of American Renewal: A Conservative Plan to Strengthen the Social Contract and Save the…

Reforming Tax Credits to Promote Child Opportunity and Aid Working Families

July 29, 2021 | Scott Winship

Reducing poverty should focus on not only short-term income support but also expanding opportunity and promoting upward mobility. Unconditional cash transfers risk discouraging work, marriage, and other behaviors associated with long-term economic mobility. Proposed reforms to the earned income tax credit and child tax credit would strengthen work and marriage incentives, better target tax relief to working- and middle-class families, and create “success sequence” savings accounts that build assets for children from low-income families who meet education, work, and family formation milestones.