Employment fell by 3.1 million jobs during 2008. The job losses were more widespread and severe than during the previous two recessions in 1990-1991 and 2001 and in fact the fall in employment is comparable to that in the deeper recession of 1981-1982.

Intergenerational income mobility can be measured by calculating the rate at which individuals move to income quintiles that are different that that of their families of origin. The proportion of sons who remained in the bottom quartile declined between 1961 and 1972 and stayed the same afterward.

The number of discouraged workers (i.e., persons who are not currently looking for work because they believe that there are no jobs available for them) increased sharply during the current recession, rising to 717,000 in the first quarter of 2009, a 70-percent increase from the first quarter of 2008. Relative to their share of the labor force, young people, blacks, and, to a lesser extent, Hispanics and men were over¬represented among discouraged workers.

Intragenerational income mobility can be measured by calculating the rate at which individuals change positions in the income distribution during their work careers. More than half of the individuals in the bottom income quintile in 1994 remained there 10 years later, and less than 4 percent reached the top quintile.

We all know that the rich in the United States tend not to live in the same neighborhoods as the poor, but it is perhaps less well-known that such residential segregation is on the rise. We can quantify this increase in segregation by asking (a) how likely it is for households in the top fifth of the income distribution to live with households not in the top fifth (in 1960 and 2000), and (b) how likely it is for households in the bottom fifth of the income distribution to live with households not in the bottom fifth (again in 1960 and 2000).