[paulhauggis]

"It may not be inherently at odds, no, but I haven't seen any evidence or studies that social mobility is in any way increasing - and it does seem counter-intuitive that social mobility could increase at the same time as income inequality."

The Internet has given many more people opportunities..if they choose to take it. There is so much free information out there..there's no reason why more people aren't able to pick up a new skill and bring themselves out of poverty.

If you don't have the Internet, pretty much every city in the US has free access at a library.

[nitrogen]

There's more to social mobility than just skill, however. As a hypothetical example, if a currently poor person who is genetically/psychologically predisposed to shyness and introversion learns a new skill, they'll still have the difficulty of forming the social connections necessary to know how to apply that skill toward generating life-altering levels of income.