Frederick Solt, Yue Hu, Kevan Hudson, Jungmin Song, and Dong Erico Yu (Iowa): Economic Inequality and Belief in Meritocracy in the United States. Andrew Granato: “$330,000 in financial aid bought me a slot in the American meritocracy. Now I see its flaws” — we’re creating the new American aristocracy. To understand rising inequality, consider the janitors at two top companies, then and now. Mona Chalabi and Amanda Holpuch on what that Google memo didn’t tell you about pay inequality in America. No one measure of inequality tells the whole story: Income, wealth, and consumption should be considered together.
Rachel M. Cohen reviews Dream Hoarders: How the American Upper Middle Class is Leaving Everyone Else in the Dust, Why That is a Problem, and What to Do About It by Richard V. Reeves (and more). The real driver of regional inequality in America: People can no longer afford to move to opportunity. It’s the gap, stupid: Archon Fung reviews Toxic Inequality: How America’s Wealth Gap Destroys Mobility, Deepens the Racial Divide and Threatens Our Future by Thomas M. Shapiro; and White Working Class: Overcoming Class Cluelessness in America by Joan C. Williams. Heather Boushey interviews Robert Solow on inequality.
How the divide between rich and poor has undermined the Constitution: Win McCormack reviews The Crisis of the Middle-Class Constitution by Ganesh Sitaraman (and more). David Leonhardt on our broken economy, in one simple chart. Jared Bernstein and Ben Spielberg on the whys of increasing inequality: A graphical portrait. Income inequality will survive the nuclear apocalypse.
