<P> Famous instances of great economic and social mobility include Benjamin Franklin and Henry Ford, Additional popular examples of upward social mobility between generations in America include Abraham Lincoln and Bill Clinton, who were born into working - class families yet achieved high political office in adult life . Andrew Carnegie, arrived in the U.S. as a poor immigrant and rose to become a steel tycoon, perhaps the wealthiest man in America, and its leading philanthropist . </P> <P> Several large studies of mobility in developed countries in recent years have found the US among the lowest in mobility . One study ("Do Poor Children Become Poor Adults?") found that of nine developed countries, the United States and United Kingdom had the lowest intergenerational vertical social mobility with about half of the advantages of having a parent with a high income passed on to the next generation . The four countries with the lowest "intergenerational income elasticity", i.e. the highest social mobility, were Denmark, Norway, Finland, and Canada with less than 20% of advantages of having a high income parent passed on to their children . (see graph) Nobel Prize - winning economist Joseph Stiglitz contends that "Scandinavian countries changed their education systems, social policies and legal frameworks to create societies where there is a higher degree of mobility . That made their countries more into the land of opportunity that America once was ." </P> <Table> <Tr> <Td> "</Td> <Td> If Americans want to live the American dream, they should go to Denmark . </Td> <Td>" </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="3">--Richard G. Wilkinson at a 2011 TED conference on economic inequality . </Td> </Tr> </Table> <Tr> <Td> "</Td> <Td> If Americans want to live the American dream, they should go to Denmark . </Td> <Td>" </Td> </Tr>

Rate of social mobility in the united states