Thomas Hirschl is a Cornell University professor of development sociology whose research focuses on social class differences in contemporary society. He comments on GoBank, a mobile checking account developed by Wal-Mart and Green Dot aimed at a lower socioeconomic demographic.

Hirschl says:

“The entry of Wal-Mart into the for-profit financial services industry will not change the underlying dynamics of economic polarization in the United States. These dynamics can be summed up as the concentration of economic wealth and poverty, and rising levels of fluidity at the top and bottom of the income distribution. Many Americans are exposed to the risk of poverty - 54 percent between ages 25 and 60 experience one or more years of poverty or near-poverty - and many others attain high income levels within their life course. “In the book ‘Chasing the American Dream,’ I outline a number of policies that could reduce the high levels of economic vulnerability including Children's Development Accounts, raising the Earned Income Tax Credit, creating equal access to high quality primary and secondary education, making a college education affordable, improving child and pre-natal nutrition programs, and indexing the minimum wage to inflation. These steps would begin to move the country away from become a nation of haves and have nots.”

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