Obama, Migration, And The Great And Restless American Middle-Class … America, Migration, And The World’s Great And Restless (For Now) Masses

[Click on graphs for enlargments.]

President Obama said today that his administration has enacted policies to foster American middle-class growth.

*

“If people who migrate expect to be placed in the middle of the national income distribution of the receiving country, they will be focused primarily on country’s mean income. But if people who migrate expect to end up in the bottom of the recipient country’s income distribution, whether the recipient country is egalitarian will be of significant importance in their decision-making. And the reverse if they expect to end up in the top of income distribution of the recipient country.”

“For the middle classes, distribution is relatively unimportant – because income shares of the middle groups do not vary much across nations.”

Branko Milanovic "Global Inequality of Opportunity" The World Bank June 2008

Graph Credits: Goldman Sachs Research.