This paper broadens the literature on intergenerational persistence of socioeconomic status to consider individual, family, and spatial variation in intergenerational health mobility in the United States. Using a school‐based representative panel (Add Health), we report overall health persistence of 0.17 with higher mobility in Hispanic families. We find large variation by place; intergenerational health persistence estimates range between 0 and 0.5, with similarly large ranges for absolute upward and downward health mobility. School‐ and contextual‐level correlates indicate local race/ethnicity composition, proportion of single parents, and average mother's education may be related to observed variation in intergenerational health mobility.

Objective To examine whether work‐limiting disability may modify intergenerational economic mobility in the United States. Methods Using the Panel Study of Income Dynamics, common metrics of intergenerational mobility are estimated by parent work‐limiting disability. These include rank slope coefficients capturing persistence of socioeconomic status and absolute upward economic mobility capturing expected child outcomes. Results Parent–child pairs with work‐limiting disability experience 5–12 percentiles lower absolute economic mobility at the 25th percentile of parent income. More severe and/or chronic conditions have larger disparities and higher parent income is associated with smaller disparities. Women may experience larger mobility differences, while non‐Hispanic black children may face a higher likelihood of parents experiencing work limitations. Conclusions Work‐limiting disability appears to modify children's economic opportunity. This contributes to the understanding of disparate access to opportunity in the United States while also identifying economic disadvantages associated with disability for subsequent generations.

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www.cpc.unc.edu/addhealth). No direct support was received from grant P01-HD31921 for this analysis. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Bureau of Economic Research. NBER working papers are circulated for discussion and comment purposes. They have not been peer-reviewed or been subject to the review by the NBER Board of Directors that accompanies official NBER publications.

This study examines the effect of Social Security benefits received in old age on food security among older adults. Using repeated cross sections from the Panel Study of Income Dynamics and an instrumental variable approach to address the endogeneity between the decision to claim Social Security and household food security, we find that an increase in Social Security benefits or becoming a Social Security beneficiary significantly increases the probability of being food secure. Our results were robust to changes of the dependent variable or the endogenous variable but were sensitive to some of the expansions or contractions of the sample.