The growing gap between lower-income and higher-income children is depicted throughout the book using charts, and the growing divide is described as a “scissor chart,” with the equivalent of the two blades of the scissors being opened and therefore widening over time. This is a recurring theme throughout the book: that class differences were relatively inconsequential at an earlier point in time but now are on different trajectories that are growing further apart over time.

In explaining these differences, the author also compares the steps needed to be successful to the rungs of a ladder and notes that the “rungs of the ladder are further apart than they used to be” (228, quoting Isabel Sawhill, Getting Ahead or Losing Ground). In the past, family and community support helped boost kids up the ladder, but that is less common now.

Throughout the book, the author notes that families from different classes rarely live in the same communities, as they frequently did in the 1950s. This phenomenon has several implications in terms of the opportunities available to lower-class children.

In terms of schools and communities, for example, those in poorer neighborhoods have less resources and therefore provide less opportunities, and lower quality opportunities, to children.