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Recession, Tech Kill Middle-Class Jobs
Un pobre guey writes
"'To understand the impact technology is having on middle-class jobs in developed countries, the AP analyzed employment data from 20 countries; tracked changes in hiring by industry, pay and task; compared job losses and gains during recessions and expansions over the past four decades; and interviewed economists, technology experts, robot manufacturers, software developers, entrepreneurs and people in the labor force who ranged from CEOs to the unemployed.' Their findings: Technology has consistently reduced the number of manufacturing jobs for 30 years; people with repetitive jobs have been easy to replace in the past, and task jugglers like managers and supervisors will be likely targets in the future; companies in the S&P 500 have expanded their business and increased profits, but reduced staffing, thanks to tech; and startups are launching much more easily these days. The response to the article includes the dutifully repeated bad-government-is-at-fault and don't-worry-it's-like-the-Industrial-Revolution memes. But what if this time it's different? What if delegating everything to machines is a radical and fundamental new change in the course of human history?"
What if the sky is really falling?
Tech has always been for getting things done faster, better and cheaper. Get over it.
The idea that our government could plan anything this complex and succeed is preposterous.
I'm currently reading Critique of Economic Reason by André Gorz. Despite being almost 30 years old, it describes this situation well. Rises in productivity due to automation are incompatible with a culture that values 'work' on a moral basis, and associates it with a persons identity.
Trickle down - thats the rich pissing on the ever increasing poor classes.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Got enough karma so might as well post this AC: http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
Captcha: exempt
What if delegating everything to machines is a radical and fundamental new change in the course of human history?"
The final question in TFS is an example of a question that's bounced along the periphery of technology and now deserves centre stage. Nicely put!
Now, what are we going to do for a living after everything's been automated?
Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear
No. College != vocational school. If you have a proper education that teaches you how to think then you can devour the technical manual for some new machine in one night, be slow but proficient the next day, and master it in a month or two.
If you cannot become the type of person that devours the tech manual in one night, then training is just throwing money down a hole. The types of jobs where training consisted of a manager giving you a few simple instructions and leaning over your shoulder for a few days to make sure you have it right? Those jobs are GONE.
The death of the middle class over the past 30 years has been intentional. Our leaders seek to return us to feudalism, and have been very successful at that. Remember that, next time you see a politician crying about the middle class.
So, since this article posits that the rise of technology is also what's killing middle-class jobs, our leaders are... us. Right here in this tech-centric website. Discussing and promoting tech. The tech that's killing middle-class jobs.
Nope, nope, too inconvenient. Has to be teh evul shadow comspeeracy and teh evul evul gummervents lookin' to take our guns and our jobs! Whew! That's much less depressing, and way easier to polarize!
The article says: In the U.S., the economic recovery that started in June 2009 has been called the third straight "jobless recovery." But that's a misnomer. The jobs came back after the first two. Most recessions since World War II were followed by a surge in new jobs as consumers started spending again and companies hired to meet the new demand. In the months after recessions ended in 1991 and 2001, there was no familiar snap-back, but all the jobs had returned in less than three years.
That is not the case. The ratio of working age men who actually work has steadily fallen since the 50s (in the USA). After each recession it plunged and then recovered .... but not to the original levels. Data.
Anyway, whilst I'm sympathetic to the general topic and find the idea fascinating, the article has a lot of other questionable statements in it. Like this one: Even the most commonplace technologies — take, say, email — are making it tough for workers to get jobs. That's obviously wrong. Email and the net allow people to find employers around the world whereas before they might have been limited to their local area. Heck, I hired a commission artist just two days ago, I initiated contact via email.
But what if this time it's different? What if delegating everything to machines is a radical and fundamental new change in the course of human history?"
You could learn to repair the machines, or learn to make the machines.
However, we have seen it before and we will see it again.
5000bc
But what if this time it's different? What if delegating everything to the wheel is a radical and fundamental new change in the course of human history? What will happen to the men who carry the litter?
1840's
But what if this time it's different? What if delegating everything to the machine is a radical and fundamental new change in the course of human history? What will happen to all the children that spin cotton?
1980's
But what if this time it's different? What if delegating everything to the machine is a radical and fundamental new change in the course of human history? What will happen to all the people who calculate trajectories when they are replaced by a single machine?
The only constant in this world is that everything changes. I believe the old adage is "Lead, Follow, or get out of the way!"
A lot of intelligent, educated people can still get too caught up in ideologies to see the big picture.
In order to be viable in the market, a labor-saving device must, by logical necessity eliminate more work than it creates. This is the only way to get the total cost of ownership down below the cost of hiring people to do the work. When successfully applied widely enough, this processes has serious economic implications.
There is a finite (and, ultimately, small) demand for brain-work (you only need one genius to invent a trinket in order for everybody to be able to have one), so the majority of displaced workers cannot simply promote themselves to more interesting work. When production is very high but the labor cost is very low, you wind up with large masses of people who can't find *any* work (or at least nothing that provides a livable wage). That results in severe crime and upheaval.
As tech puts us all out of work, we either start adopting more socialist policies, we put most of our population in jail (where we pay for their needs anyway), or we experience a violent mess.
It's not just schooling. The fact of the matter is that some people aren't too bright. Without repetitive, simple jobs, these people will literally have no place in the economy. There's no comfortable answer here. Do we prevent the births of stupid people? Gene engineer all potential parents so that their children are smarter? How smart? Where are the boundaries? And who pays? Or do we just hand them all a check each month and encourage them to stay out of the way, and reproduce as little as possible?
20th century morality isn't going to stand up long to this 21st century problem. Somewhere, something's got to give. Good luck if you think "the marketplace" is a good way to solve this. I think that was tried in France, and in Russia.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
I sometimes wonder if feudalism isn't the economic system that is just historically more sustainable over time than anything else once your population exceeds the numbers associated with tribal organization.
How long have we actually had "capitalism" and the kind of capitalism that assumes that its participants should pay fair prices or receive fair wages? Historically it seems like a total anomaly and it requires a ton of energy (political, economic, human) to sustain it.
Given the chance, those who can will hoard resources and charge exorbitant prices for them and will pay as little as possible for labor, with no concern over the standard of living of labor. Slavery isn't inconsistent with feudal organization.
At least in agrarian feudalism there were some limits -- underfed agricultural labor tends to produce less, putting the entire enterprise at risk, and some kinds of feudalism, though unfair by many standards, evolved to at least have a sort of reciprocal welfare, where the continuance of the system was more important than its efficiency.
I think some of the commentors here need to go back to econ 101 (or just use their heads for five minutes).
Automation and increased unemployment are _inversely correlated_. If automation destroyed jobs, than how do you account for the trillions of jobs that have been created over the previous thousands of years given the creation of the wheel, the plow, the assembly line, the computer, etc.?
There are _tons_ of jobs being created by today's automation, just as there always has been with increased efficiencies. The problem is that those jobs aren't being created in the US! The taxes are too high, the regulation is too onerous, and the labor is too expensive. If we lack job creation in the US, we only have ourselves and our boneheaded policies to blame!
Why not just hand everyone a check, assuming everything is now nearly free since machines make it?
All of these things are true:
The point of college/university is to teach you how to think not fucking tradeschool. The classes you refer as filler and fluff are the damn point!
Tech could just as easily extend middle class jobs, if we chose productivity over cost efficiency. The problem is the people making those decisions seem to lean heavily towards saving their wealth, rather than investing and creating more. We ought to look into why they are making that decision, and also, why they are the ones who get to make it.
reduction of people in manual labor jobs is intentional or if not intentional then the intentional GOAL of progress. that's what enables us to have droves of scientists, armies of professional athletes and more artists per capita than ever in every field. just a hundred years ago most people were occupied on producing basic necessities like food - now pretty much everyone in developed countries is fed, yet very few of us work in food production. that's on purpose.
doesn't have much to do with feudalism though. quite the opposite. you want feudalism, you keep everyone on manual labor, you keep everyone on leash - you don't just set them free to do whatever they please with all the information in the world. you pay few to tax them to feed the masses.. that's more akin to socialism and the star trek goal there is to eventually have just very, very few of us toiling on food production and have everyone else do research and production of whatever gimmick devices they want.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Those who own the machines will party. The rest will most likely starve and be ignored. Then tossed in jail when they steal to eat.
Feudalism ended for a reason, and it's not coming back unless the conditions that generated it come back around again. I consider that a possibility if we run short on resources like oil, without a backup plan, but it won't come from increased efficiency like automation.
The thing that people forget is that when automation becomes more and more ubiquitous, it becomes cheaper and cheaper. Eventually, the common people will own the means of production without a revolution because the means of production will be self-producing, intelligent, and widely available. The computer I am typing on is more powerful than a supercomputer from a few decades ago. My $499 tablet runs more applications, with more colors, networking and sound, than my 4,000 dollar desktop did in the 1990s.
Yes, jobs where you get paid 70K to fetch tools from a tool bin are going to be history. That's not a middle class job. That's a blue collar job with a ridiculous salary.
I will go ahead of the AC won't. During the depression progressives froze wages, business responded by offering incentives like health care and dental to work around the wage freeze when recruiting talented workers. It became an expected benefit, and then a codified one.
refactor the law, its bloated, confusing and unmaintainable.
did you know that 90% of americans were once farmers? and then they got pushed off the land by the emergence of technology and corporate farming (we're still in the 19th century here, folks). and THEN those people and their children took jobs in heavy industry (Carnegie, Mellon...) and extraction industries like logging and mining. And THEN the heavy industry jobs moved offshore and the extraction industries automated and wound down a bit. and THEN those people and their kids took jobs in engineering and technological industries. and THEN Japan took over the automotive and consumer markets. Remember the '70's "japan has won the war". And THEN... well OBVIOUSLY it's a HUGE CONSPIRACY perpetrated over several generations by... some... bunch of people who... well...
Why not just hand everyone a check
That's how things work in Sarah Palin Land.
That's a special case though, since they have natural resources that the state gets income from.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
All of us benefit from being the heirs of the industrial revolution. Even the poorest of us have better health and nutrition than before. We all have better health care than the mightiest king did 300 years ago. Yet for the average person who lived during the industrial revolution life was poor hell. Craftsmen and herders were sent into Dickensian factories and mines. I hope we can live long enough for the majority of citizens to see a benefit from our present computer revolution.
I think the assumption is that manufacturing jobs had in many ways achieved "middle class" status by the late 1960s. They had pay that allowed a spouse to not work, health benefits, pensions and enabled the workers to own their own home and an automobile.
Most of the jobs you listed I would call "professional" jobs that either require post-secondary education (doctor, lawyer, professors) or substantial certifications (accountant, architect, financial managers, nurses).
A lot of those jobs (doctors, lawyers, etc) I've seen classified lately as HENRY -- High Earners, Not Rich Yet.
Ironically, a lot of the manufacturing jobs of "today" that I've been exposed to are very sophisticated, requiring high level computer skills in addition to a lot of knowledge on operating complex machinery as well as knowledge about what the machinery does (ie, welding, or metallurgy, etc).
At least to read the business section in the paper, they make it sound like these are the "future" of manufacturing and that people with these skills can produce greater volume and quality than the oft-cited overseas labor.
What jobs exactly are even considered middle class seems to be highly contentious and subjective.
Depends how far back you go, I suppose. If you go back 35 years, you'd find lots of people working in manufacturing (autos / ships / whatever), steelwork etc. who were 'middle class.' They owned a car and a house, raised a family, maybe went to a ballgame on the weekend. Those are the jobs that are gone.
Boy, are you presenting a logical, reasoned argument backed up by history to the wrong crowd.
Slashdot's really gone downhill since I last was hanging around. It's getting more like Fark every day.
The computer I am typing on is more powerful than a supercomputer from a few decades ago.
No, it isn't. That computer handled the needs of an entire multinational corporation and resulted in numerous scientific discoveries and papers. Your table is so amazingly un-powerful all you can do is play angry birds on it and post to /.
"Economic power" comes from what it DOES not how fast a flipflop toggles in the innards.
If you want a cruddy analogy, the brain of a Nobel prize winner might be "better" in whatever measure than the average coffee barista. That doesn't mean that coffee made by a Nobel Prize winner is any more "powerful" than coffee made by the average tattooed pierced B.S. degree holding barista.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
This short story explores some of the possibilities.
http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm
Don't know something? Look it up. Still don't know? Then ask.
Sadly, many people would rather believe that some powerful, competent and malevolent group is in charge and causes all the bad shit that happens. Whether that group is the government, corporations, the UN, the Illuminati, or whatever.
The idea that sometimes shit happens because someone just screwed up is scary. The idea that sometimes shit just happens and it isn't even possible to stop it is scary. No one would have had to come up with the adage "Never attribute to malice that which can adequately be explained by stupidity" if people weren't so eager to believe that there was someone to blame for intentionally causing all their problems instead.
Note of course this does not deny that governments, corporations, and other groups _can't_ purposefully do shitty things to people, just that people have a strong tendency to exaggerate the power, maliciousness and competence of those groups.
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There are far fewer middle managers than there used to be. Span of control (number of persons reporting to a manager) was typically 4-5 in the 1950s. Now it's typically up to around 8-10. This is a direct result of improved information technology. This implies less upward mobility.
Retail is shrinking. The US has a lot of closed stores and dead malls. They're not coming back. First Wal-Mart clobbered the small town main street, and now Amazon is clobbering what's left.
A less discussed side effect of information technology is that it's now possible to run bigger business units than before. Before heavy use of computers and networks, management and control problems of scaling tended to choke large businesses. Big companies had trouble getting out of their own way. Dividing companies into divisions was necessary just to deal with scaling issues. General Motors was the classic example of the division-based company. Each brand had its own factories.
That's much less true today. Wal-Mart, McDonalds, and Amazon don't seem to have scaling problems. Automakers run as units, with work farmed out to various factories as appropriate. With no real operational limits on business size, (and weak antitrust enforcement) the trend is towards a world where there are only a very few huge businesses in each category.
That's where the middle class went.
Middle class incomes stagnated, that's what. The rich got a *lot* richer, everyone else got jack shit.
Not true. The median income from 1965 to 2005 (in 2005 dollars) shows a general trend upward. If anything it shows movement towards stagnation BEFORE "trickle down" tax rates went into effect.
And no, everyone else didn't get jack shit. Just look on your desk right now. You have what at one time would have been considered a supercomputer attached to a global network that you use to bitch about how exploited you are.
Note that the bar of "not stupid" will keep raising.
Kurt Vonnegut considered this problem in his novel written in 1952:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Player_Piano
But to be honest, today I'm less concerned with "robots are replacing humans" (this makes economy more effective, if measured in product per worker's hour) and much more concerned with "cheap labor form overseas is destroying jobs". (which most of the time reduces product per worker's hour value)
Well, when you have people like Newt Gingrich and Grover Norquist openly proclaiming that they intend to take us back to the glory days of the Victorian age and they're back with unlimited funds from some of the richest people the planet has ever known it's a bit hard to believe that it's all just coincidence. Powerful, competent and malevolent certainly describe those two, and quite a number of people that they work closely with.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Economically that could work. Except for the coming resource and energy shortages.
Unfortunately, if you look at communities where this is already done (any community with a very high welfare rate, such as native reservations), the social problems that it causes are hard to overlook.
Ultimately people need meaning in their lives and getting everything for free doesn't fill that. They need to do meaningful work.
It's all those manufacturing jobs, apparently. The ones that are dirty, dangerous and mind numbing. Thanks to insanely strong unions many of them are also obscenely overpaid, which makes them "middle class."
In a theoretical way, yes. However, machines enable products that would not be feasible otherwise; try to manufacture a computer chip manually. Movie cammeras may reduce the number of actors needed, but also make high-value-productions available to everyone, not just to a few kings and nobles.
The thing that people forget is that when automation becomes more and more ubiquitous, it becomes cheaper and cheaper. Eventually, the common people will own the means of production without a revolution because the means of production will be self-producing, intelligent, and widely available.
True, on the condition it isn't successfully lobbied and regulated out of the hands of the common people.
The point of college/university is to teach you how to think not fucking tradeschool. The classes you refer as filler and fluff are the damn point!
For a business owner I do not give a shit. I want someone who can walk right in and make me money for the cheapest price with no training. If not then I won't hire you. Expanding your boundaries? That doesn't make me money.
Someone skilled does.
http://saveie6.com/
Look, suppose Republicans and their corporate cronies actually got everything they say they want and you and i are correct about the consequences. The end result would be global economic collapse and most likely revolution and possibly outright war. The poor tend to suffer disproportionately during such things, but the rich aren't entirely immune. (Especially if someone decides to start tossing nukes around.)
I seriously doubt that's what they actually want for themselves. So either they're being selectively stupid about some things, or you and i are being selectively stupid about some things. (Or alternately, the Republicans and corporations are demanding outrageous things either as a bargaining position or in exchange for favors, which could be it's own kind of stupid.)
People are rarely either smart about everything or stupid about everything. It's entirely possible to be good at gaining or maintaining money or power without being able to forsee long term consequences of some of your actions.
I'm not saying they're not wrong. And maybe they're not very nice people. But i seriosuly doubt they're plotting the downfall of western civilization while cackling madly. In fact it's entirely possible they're incredibly competent at some things but so totally deluded in other areas that they'd actually be surprised if their plans didn't work out. Look at Mitt Romney. He was competent enough to get rich and get the nomination, and yet he and a lot of the other Republicans were caught totally unprepared by reality on election day. Unless you think that was just part of a deeper plot?
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saving their wealth, rather than investing and creating more
So, without savings, exactly where are they supposed to get the capital to be invested? Rich people don't save by stuffing it under mattresses, people.
My next door neighbor was plumber. He didn't just clear blocked pipes and drains. He designed entire bathrooms and house renovations down to specifying the electric systems, insulation, types of wood, varnish, filing planning permission applications as well as the plumbing and drainage. In fact this was why there was a shortage of plumbers in the UK. They were all making more money from home renovations than from basic repairs.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Well, sure, a truly egalitarian society is arguably a wonderful goal - I won't be holding my breath waiting for one though. In the meantime, historically western society has been divided into a very few "haves" who control most of the wealth, and a very many have-nots who are mostly struggling to get by as their servants.
The rise of the middle class created a vast number of people with the wealth and leisure to direct towards art, science, politics, etc. Perhaps even more important is the existence of a middle class tends to be essential to social mobility - if all you have is nobles and serfs you're pretty much guaranteed to die as a member of the same class you were born to - no amount of brilliance and hard work will let a serf be any more than a serf unless they marry into the nobility - at best they'll either attract a noble sponsor and at least live in comfort, or perhaps become a free agent with enough skill to do a bit better than the serfs and at least have their freedom.
In essence: It's not the middle class *itself* that is important, it's the fact that it's a symptom of social and economic mobility. Also the middle class, when healthy, tends to contain the bulk of a population, with very few people being really rich or poor. When there isn't a healthy middle class just about everyone except those at the very top pretty much end up within a stones throw of severe poverty, so a healthy middle class also means almost everyone is doing much better, at least economically, than they would otherwise be.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
the powers that be are getting a rein in on that. The ruling class has taken back the media. Sure, they let them have their little liberal social issues, but on economics it's conservative capitalism 24/7. The little guys didn't do much revolting for over 2000 years, and got put down every time they did (didn't turn out so good for Napoleon, did it?).
The assumption you're making is that you're going to win in the good vs evil fight. Even if good doesn't win, you'll win. You won't. They'll come for you soon too. For all of us. There's nothing you have that the ruling class won't take away. Their greed knows no limits or bounds. It's what they do. They have enough wealth to buy anything. They teach us that if somebody just gives it to you you'll stop there. But that's a lie. They didn't stop. They never stop.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
What makes you think they'll be a revolution? The rich have trained armies with unlimited weapons on their side. The poor have low caliber semi-autos they can barely shoot. Also, the poor tend to just take it. I live 2 blocks from a ridiculously expensive neighborhood, I'm in low rent housing for H1-Bs, and not 2 miles away there's slums I wouldn't walk in at night. The poor keep their misery to themselves. They're convinced they deserve it. Hell, Mitt Romney came out and said it was wrong of 47% to think they're entitled to food, housing and health care and nobody even noticed. They were just made at being dismissed.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
I know a lot of people do not like those who are filthy rich, but you guys need to know this ...
Most of those who are filthy rich were originally from lower to middle class, just like you guys.
They got to where they are because of one thing - they got tired of working for someone else.
I know, I know, the recession and the tech have killed a lot of middle class jobs, but to some, this crisis is the perfect chance for them to do something about it ... like starting their own business, instead.
So ... why are you guys moaning the loss of your work?
What is the use of complaining?
Do you think that by complaining here (and elsewhere) you can get a better job?
Why don't you start your own business, for a change?
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Most of those who are filthy rich were originally from lower to middle class, just like you guys.
(citation needed)
There are plenty of mechanisms in place which make it easy to assume most of the filthy rich made it because they were born into wealth, either directly through inheritances or indirectly through financial help, family connections, and better schooling. Just as an example, 4 of the top 20 richest people on earth are part of the Walton family, which inherited their wealth from Sam Walton.
That isn't to say I dismiss your point outright, but I think I need to see some actual data before I accept your point.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
... easy to assume most of the filthy rich made it because they were born into wealth ...
If that's what you like to think, that's what you'll end up thinking.
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
Exactly... like the Rothechild's, Jim Walton, Bill Gates, who started at the top and worked his way up, Warren Buffet, who also started as a child of privilege, ...
In fact, well over 2/3 of the current wealthiest americans all started rich.
They got their because their PARENTS were already wealthy and in America, your parents' income now accounts for 50% of your adult income potential- that's worse then many companies in EUROPE where it only accounts for 10%.
America HAS some benefits- like forgiving you if you go bankrupt. You actually can start over again here unlike so many places (unless the reason is student debt- then you are frakked).
But "land of opportunity" isn't one of them in the way you are talking.
You can work your way up a rung or two. The rest is all connections, family names, and inherited money.
And now those guys are using the money to buy machines which have been destroying jobs for almost a generation (15 years).
Once you stop employing people- you can't use the capitalist model any more.
If you have a job- do what I did. Save over half of what you made. Don't carry any debt. Then when they lay off 500 of you and take a SEVEN figure raise for "saving money on salaries", you will be safe.
Worst run offshoring/outsourcing I've ever been part of. Our replacements didn't even arrive until 4 months after the layoffs- most of us were already gone. Companies probably screwed... but wait- that just means the executives are all going to get TWO YEARS PAY for highly damaging the company.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
They've gotten greedy.
Study's have shown they now think people poor is the fault of the poor person and that being wealthy is entirely because they worked smart/hard/morally and the poor person was an immoral, unwise loser.
And as a result, anything they want to do to the poor person is justifiable and moral.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
You ain't seen nothing yet. There's a short story about where all this is going.. http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm.. two models of the future in there, but I only find one plausible.
http://rareformnewmedia.com/
Yep, pretty much the post I was going to write.
I remember back in the '70s there was some discussion about investing on the behalf of citizens by governments to ensure basic levels of support --- see Hal Clements' mention of ``draft dodgers'' in his short story ``The Mechanic''.
Bit late for that now --- perhaps a tax on CPU processing power?
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
That isn't to say I dismiss your point outright, but I think I need to see some actual data before I accept your point.
You are quite right to doubt him.
Relative upwards mobility (in the US) is quite limited from everything I've read. Generally you end up in the same income quintile as your parents. Absolute income may be higher (hopefully, if you want to keep up with inflation), but relative income stays the same.
There are tons of articles online on the subject. Here's a cute little video that explains relative vs absolute income change. They claim the upper and lower quintiles to be "sticky" (i.e. less likely to see movement). They seem to have some interesting research on the subject of economic mobility.
The rich stay rich, the poor stay poor and the middle income shuffle around. In Canada we're finding the "middle class" quintiles (middle 3 groups) are spread quite wide now. A family income of $40K-$125K is considered "middle income". A family making $125K is a whole different standard of living and level of financial security from one making $40K. If a tax policy benefits people that make more than 70K but less than 125K can we actually call it a tax break for the middle class? The US middle class looks a lot more compact (by some quick googling). Of course that's because the wealth is a lot more concentrated at the top in the US. In the US you have to make >380K to be a 1%er. In Canada a mere 280K will get you into the 1% club.
"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill
In fact you can quantify the effect that the rich tend to stay rich in the US and the poor are stuck in poverty using something called the "intergenerational mobility index". Basically, the US is one of the worst countries in this regard and it has gotten that way mostly over the last few decades. Here is a summary from "The Price of Inequality," by J. Stiglitz, p. 18.
"It is at the bottom and the top where the United States performs especially badly: those at the bottom have a good chance of staying there, as do those at the top, and much more so than in other countries. With full equality of opportunity, 20 percent of those in the bottom fifth would see their childen in the bottom fifth. Denmark almost achieves that - 25% are stuck there. Britain, supposedly notorious for its class divisions, does only a little worse (30%). That means they have a 70% chance of moving up. The chances of moving up in America, though, are markedly smaller (only 58% of the children born to the bottom group make it out)."
Data on these claims:
"Some 62% of the children of those in the top quintile wind up in the top 40%"
from "Getting Ahead or Losing Ground: Economic Mobility in America:" http://www.brookings.edu/research/reports/2008/02/economic-mobility-sawhill