Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"Well, this may be the big economic question of our age. And as you might expect there has been a lot of research done by economists to try to answer the question. And as you look at the research and the research results, I think three major conclusions are reached.

"Number one, if you look at the income of the current generation, and you compare their income to that of the previous generation, and of course, you adjust for inflation, you see that current incomes are higher. In fact, they are significantly higher. But in most cases you are going to see a difference based on where you are on the income ladder. The biggest gains have been for the highest-income households.

"The second conclusion, however, as you look behind those averages, you see that - and again directly answering your question - about two-thirds of Americans have higher real incomes than their parents. But one-third have lower incomes.

"And then the third major conclusion is that in terms of a person's position on the income ladder, the biggest percentage of people remain at the same relative position in their lifetime as did their parents."