Up and Coming Weekly is a weekly publication in Fayetteville, NC and Fort Bragg, NC area offering local news, views, arts, entertainment and community event and business information.
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THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET Moving on up others. THIS WEEK WITH MARGARET by MARGARET DICKSON We all have dreams and ambitions for ourselves, some more realistic than the spot on the map and rumors of English palace intrigue and invisible ink. I can hardly wait for news of further investigation. While I did not achieve my Lost Colony goal, I have hopes that someone will, and I continue to believe that America is the ultimate land of opportunity and that each of us can achieve our dream if we really, really work at it. In modern lingo, we all want our version of upward mobility, whatever that means to us individually. And the way we keep score on upward mobility is — what else — money! The Pew Center on the States has recently released the fi rst analysis of Americans economic mobility, a key component of the American Dream, and there is not much good news in it for southern states, including North Carolina. The Pew Center looked at economic mobility in three ways — whether Americans' earnings rose or fell during their prime working years, where Americans rank relative to their peers in their geographic regions and whether Americans' earnings rose or fell relative to their peers. In other words, are we keeping up with the Joneses in our neighborhoods and across the nation? Are we building our American Dreams or are we falling out of them? The measures were taken during two periods, 10 years apart and ending in 2007. There is good news and there is bad news. When I was a very young girl, I was fascinated by the story of little Virginia Dare and what is now known as the Lost Colony. I was convinced that my destiny was to fi nd Virginia and discover what had happened to her more than 100 family members and friends in their failed attempt to establish an English colony on North Carolina's Roanoke Island. It did not occur to me that whatever had happened to baby Virginia, she was long gone to her reward by the time I fi rst heard her mysterious story and probably drove my mother crazy with my questions and speculation about the Lost Colony. I did not solve the mystery of the Lost Colony, of course, but I have been mesmerized this month by the news that the answer may have been under our noses for centuries. A re- examination of a map made by John White, the colony's governor and grandfather of the infant Virginia, hints that the colonists moved about 50 miles inland — a long suggested possibility — to a site that now includes a golf course. Adding to the mystery is a patch that covered Exceptionally good news comes for people in three states — Maryland, New Jersey and New York, which have better economic mobility measures than the national averages on all three measures. Five more states — Connecticut, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Utah — have better averages on two of the three measures than other states. Umm? Wonder what they are eating and drinking in the Northeast? Not so good is the news for nine southern states. Louisiana, Oklahoma, and our neighbor South Carolina, have lower economic mobility on all three Pew Center measures. Alabama, Florida, Kentucky, Mississippi, Texas, and sadly, North Carolina, have worse mobility than the national average on two of the three measures. So what does this actually mean? Some of this is almost certainly the legacy of the Great Recession of 2009, from which we are offi cially recovered, but lingers in the form of widespread unemployment and underemployment. A re-examination of a map made by John White, the colony's governor and grandfather of the infant Virginia, hints that the colonists moved about 50 miles inland. analysts and other economists say the bright side is that employment is rising which means that some of us will get back on the upward mobility train, although some of us are almost certainly off for good. Analysts also point out that while higher levels of education do not provide absolute insulation from the woes of recession, they do provide some protection from dramatic gains and drops in income. People with more education start higher on the upward mobility ladder, and if they fall, they are more likely to fi nd their footing to climb again. To me, this is another argument for why North Carolina must strengthen its commitment to education at all levels and why individuals must prepare themselves educationally for the workplace and always be prepared to re-tool their skills. I am distressed, of course, that North Carolina did not fare well in the Pew Center on the States' analysis, and I look forward to the up-tick as we continue to come out of the hangover of the Great Recession. By the same token, I am not packing up for Maryland, New Jersey or New York any time soon. MARGARET DICKSON, Con- tributing Writer, COMMENTS? Editor@upandcomingweekly.com. Ytrvurvvbvuvurru vvyryrvx www.upandcomingweekly.com 484-6200 Millions of Americans who might have been on an upward mobility track were derailed by layoffs followed by long-term and in some cases, enduring unemployment. Pew Center 6 UCW MAY 23-29, 2012 WWW.UPANDCOMINGWEEKLY.COM