We do know that working-class Americans aren’t just less likely to climb the economic ladder, they’re also more likely to fall off even after they’ve… - JD Vance

When Mamaw picked me up from school, I’d ask her not to get out of the car lest my friends see her — wearing her uniform of baggy jeans and a men’s T-shirt — with a giant menthol cigarette hanging from her lip. When people asked, I lied and told them that I lived with my mom, that she and I took care of my ailing grandmother. Even today, I still regret that far too many high school friends and acquaintances never knew Mamaw was the best thing that ever happened to me.

The United States has provided a blanket of security to Europe for far too long.

Another lesson is that it’s not just our own communities that reinforce the outsider attitude, it’s the places and people that upward mobility connects us with — like my professor who suggested that Yale Law School shouldn’t accept applicants from non-prestigious state schools. There’s no way to quantify how these attitudes affect the working class. We do know that working-class Americans aren’t just less likely to climb the economic ladder, they’re also more likely to fall off even after they’ve reached the top. I imagine that the discomfort they feel at leaving behind much of their identity plays at least a small role in this problem. One way our upper class can promote upward mobility, then, is not only by pushing wise public policies but by opening their hearts and minds to the newcomers who don’t quite belong.