What does social mobility mean, and how should it be measured?

“If you ask 100 people, you're gonna get 100 different answers,” says Justin Callais, chief economist at the Archbridge Institute and co-editor of Profectus Magazine. Callais discusses Archbridge’s new social mobility report on The Overton Window Podcast.

Archbridge favors this definition: “The extent to which individuals and families can improve their relative economic or social standing over time — whether that's through work, entrepreneurship, or human capital formation.”

Rather than focusing on a single metric, the report evaluates social mobility across four pillars designed to encompass an entire life cycle.

1. Environment for Entrepreneurship & Economic Growth
“It’s the idea that if we encourage entrepreneurship and we have pro-growth policies, we're going to have policies that allow for more opportunities.” This includes occupational licensing, business and tax regulation, housing affordability, and business dynamism, all factors that shape whether individuals can take risks and pursue new opportunities.

2. Institutions and the Rule of Law
Archbridge examines the quality of state judicial systems and what Callais describes as “predatory state action.” That includes corruption, civil asset forfeiture, and limited access to justice. The strength of a state’s liability system also matters, since it affects how easily businesses can operate and grow.

3. Education and Skills Development
The report looks at childcare regulations, education quality, school choice, community colleges, and universities. Callais emphasizes that “education also happens inside of the home.” Measures of family stability and parental engagement play a major role, including shared meals, attending children’s activities, and reading to children. These factors strongly influence literacy and long-term outcomes.

4. Social Capital
The informal networks that help people navigate life. “It fills in the gaps where one-size-fits-all policies don't necessarily fit perfectly into anyone's particular circumstances.” The report looks at community involvement, cross-income friendships, charity regulations, volunteering, and the density of nonprofits and religious congregations.

“We get a pretty accurate picture… of each state’s strengths and weaknesses, realizing that no state does it perfectly, but also that no state fails in every single category either.”

One area the report examines closely is the return on investment from higher education. “I still think the broad consensus is college degrees, for the most part, are very much worth it.” At the same time, returns vary widely. “About 54 percent of graduates from universities in Hawaii have a negative return on investment.” Michigan is the highest performing state in this measure, with only 9.7 percent of attendees seeing negative returns.

Overall rankings reveal no clear partisan pattern and suggest that “no political party or no political side tends to do particularly better than one side or the other.” High-performing states include a mix of red and blue states featuring Utah, Wyoming, and Idaho—but also Vermont and Colorado. Likewise, lower-ranked states include Louisiana, Alabama, West Virginia, and Arkansas alongside California, New York, and Illinois.

“By showing the different effects across states like we have in this report, I do want to emphasize that this is still a country where opportunity is still possible,” Callais says. After six years of reporting, Archbridge continues to find that roughly 70 percent of Americans believe they have achieved the American dream or are on their way to doing so.

Listen to the full conversation on The Overton Window Podcast.

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