Chat with us: How to Save the Middle Class
The decline of the middle class is a serious and persistent threat to the American economy - on this, the evidence is convincing. We need to arrest that slide. But how?
That's the subject of a live chat here at the Roundtable at noon on Tuesday, May 22. I'll be joined by two top-notch economists: Heather Boushey of the liberal Center for American Progress, co-author of a new report on why the middle class matters so much for growth, and Kevin Hassett of the conservative American Enterprise Institute (and an adviser to Gov. Mitt Romney's presidential campaign) who made a big splash with a recent op-ed column he co-wrote in the New York Times decrying the "human disaster" of unemployment.
Kevin and Heather will field your questions about what's happened to the middle class and how policymakers can begin to set things right. Please join us and join the conversation.
Chat with us here:
Chat with us: How to Save the Middle Class
The decline of the middle class is a serious and persistent threat to the American economy - on this, the evidence is convincing. We need to arrest that slide. But how?
That's the subject of a live chat here at the Roundtable at noon on Tuesday, May 22. I'll be joined by two top-notch economists: Heather Boushey of the liberal Center for American Progress, co-author of a new report on why the middle class matters so much for growth, and Kevin Hassett of the conservative American Enterprise Institute (and an adviser to Gov. Mitt Romney's presidential campaign) who made a big splash with a recent op-ed column he co-wrote in the New York Times decrying the "human disaster" of unemployment.
Kevin and Heather will field your questions about what's happened to the middle class and how policymakers can begin to set things right. Please join us and join the conversation.
Chat with us here:
Power has Shifted From the Middle Class - Now What?
Jake Rosenfeld meets me during a sun break on a windy May afternoon, on the steps of the library at the University of Washington, where he is a sociologist. We grab a coffee and, and while in line, talk about how budget cuts have frozen his salary, jacked up tuition, and sent the university abroad recruiting foreign undergrads who can pay a subsidizing-freight tuition.
We settle at an outside table and watch students mill about the quad. "This feels idyllic," Rosenfeld says, especially compared to his hometown of St. Louis, or to any other of the "dying river cities" he is so fond of. "Seattle doesn't seem like a place I'd worry about."
But, as I write in a Restoration Calls narrative about the dangers of widening inequality, Rosenfeld does worry about Seattle - and the country.
In his research, he has tracked large and worrying trends in the U.S. labor market. One is the decline of the "job for life," like the one his grandfather had at DuPont after leaving the Navy. That's created an "enormous power shift" from workers to employees, he says. It used to be that companies would overpay you in your youth, when you were learning; underpay you in your prime, when you were most productive; and overpay you again as you neared retirement and slowed down a touch. In the end, it evened out.
Now, companies just want to grab you in your prime, for the same bargain rates. Productivity and wages have become decoupled - where once they rose in tandem, now productivity is rising and median wages have stalled. "You see it even at Boeing," Rosenfeld says, invoking the traditional economic jet engine of the Puget Sound area. "And if you see it at Boeing, it's gone."
Power has Shifted From the Middle Class - Now What?
Jake Rosenfeld meets me during a sun break on a windy May afternoon, on the steps of the library at the University of Washington, where he is a sociologist. We grab a coffee and, and while in line, talk about how budget cuts have frozen his salary, jacked up tuition, and sent the university abroad recruiting foreign undergrads who can pay a subsidizing-freight tuition.
We settle at an outside table and watch students mill about the quad. "This feels idyllic," Rosenfeld says, especially compared to his hometown of St. Louis, or to any other of the "dying river cities" he is so fond of. "Seattle doesn't seem like a place I'd worry about."
But, as I write in a Restoration Calls narrative about the dangers of widening inequality, Rosenfeld does worry about Seattle - and the country.
In his research, he has tracked large and worrying trends in the U.S. labor market. One is the decline of the "job for life," like the one his grandfather had at DuPont after leaving the Navy. That's created an "enormous power shift" from workers to employees, he says. It used to be that companies would overpay you in your youth, when you were learning; underpay you in your prime, when you were most productive; and overpay you again as you neared retirement and slowed down a touch. In the end, it evened out.
Now, companies just want to grab you in your prime, for the same bargain rates. Productivity and wages have become decoupled - where once they rose in tandem, now productivity is rising and median wages have stalled. "You see it even at Boeing," Rosenfeld says, invoking the traditional economic jet engine of the Puget Sound area. "And if you see it at Boeing, it's gone."
The Case for the Middle Class
The Center for American Progress is a liberal think tank in Washington, but its latest economic opus draws from compelling research across the political spectrum to make a powerful case: that the strength of the U.S. economy depends on the health of the middle class.
I quote the paper, by economists Heather Boushey and Adam Hersh, in my Restoration Calls piece on Nick Hanauer and his fight to convince the innovative class that its fate is tied to the middle class. The report is worth a read in its entirety; notice how much of the research it relies upon comes from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, among other high-powered institutions that are not roundly considered bastion of liberalism. The bulk of Boushey and Hersh's sources aren't partisan in any way - just detailed, data-driven analysis from top economists.
Here's how Boushey and Hersh summarize their argument:
The economy grows when technological improvements or investments in human or physical capital boost productivity, when the labor force increases, or when investment in physical capital adds to the economy's productive stock--and thus total output expands.
But this begs the question: What boosts productivity or creates incentives to invest? Economists differ in their specific answers to these questions, but the different theories point to five primary factors:• The level of human capital and whether talent is encouraged to boost the economy's productivity
• Cost of and access to financial capital, which allow firms and entrepreneurs to make real investments that create technological progress to use in the economy
• Strong and stable demand, which creates the market for goods and services and allows investors to plan for the future
• The quality of political and economic institutions, including the quality of corporate governance as well as political institutions and a legal structure that enforces contracts
• Investment in public goods, education, health, and infrastructure, which lays the foundation for private-sector investment
Strong empirical evidence in economics and other social sciences suggests that the strength of the middle class and the level of income inequality have an important role to play for each of these five factors boosting productivity and spurring investment.
Read the report for yourself, then come back here to the Roundtable on May 22, at noon, to chat about how to save the middle class with Boushey and Kevin Hassett, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. We'll take your questions and see if we can't find some common ground on how to end America's middle-class slide.
The Case for the Middle Class
The Center for American Progress is a liberal think tank in Washington, but its latest economic opus draws from compelling research across the political spectrum to make a powerful case: that the strength of the U.S. economy depends on the health of the middle class.
I quote the paper, by economists Heather Boushey and Adam Hersh, in my Restoration Calls piece on Nick Hanauer and his fight to convince the innovative class that its fate is tied to the middle class. The report is worth a read in its entirety; notice how much of the research it relies upon comes from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, among other high-powered institutions that are not roundly considered bastion of liberalism. The bulk of Boushey and Hersh's sources aren't partisan in any way - just detailed, data-driven analysis from top economists.
Here's how Boushey and Hersh summarize their argument:
The economy grows when technological improvements or investments in human or physical capital boost productivity, when the labor force increases, or when investment in physical capital adds to the economy's productive stock--and thus total output expands.
But this begs the question: What boosts productivity or creates incentives to invest? Economists differ in their specific answers to these questions, but the different theories point to five primary factors:• The level of human capital and whether talent is encouraged to boost the economy's productivity
• Cost of and access to financial capital, which allow firms and entrepreneurs to make real investments that create technological progress to use in the economy
• Strong and stable demand, which creates the market for goods and services and allows investors to plan for the future
• The quality of political and economic institutions, including the quality of corporate governance as well as political institutions and a legal structure that enforces contracts
• Investment in public goods, education, health, and infrastructure, which lays the foundation for private-sector investment
Strong empirical evidence in economics and other social sciences suggests that the strength of the middle class and the level of income inequality have an important role to play for each of these five factors boosting productivity and spurring investment.
Read the report for yourself, then come back here to the Roundtable on May 22, at noon, to chat about how to save the middle class with Boushey and Kevin Hassett, an economist at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. We'll take your questions and see if we can't find some common ground on how to end America's middle-class slide.
TED's Curator Responds on Inequality
"Today TED was subject to a story so misleading it would be funny... except it successfully launched an aggressive online campaign against us."
Thus begins a blog post from TED curator Chris Anderson, responding directly to NJ's reporting on the decision not to post Nick Hanauer's talk on income inequality. (A talk which, incidentally, Anderson has now posted on YouTube.) Anderson had previously only responded to NJ's questions with a written statement.
In his blog post, Anderson writes that "a non-story about a talk not being chosen, because we believed we had better ones, somehow got turned into a scandal about censorship. Which is like saying that if I call the New York Times and they turn down my request to publish an op-ed by me, they're censoring me.
"For the record, pretty much everyone at TED, including me, worries a great deal about the issue of rising inequality. We've carried talks on it in the past, like this one from Richard Wilkinson. We'd carry more in the future if someone can find a way of framing the issue that is convincing and avoids being needlessly partisan in tone."
Read the whole Anderson post here.
TED's Curator Responds on Inequality
"Today TED was subject to a story so misleading it would be funny... except it successfully launched an aggressive online campaign against us."
Thus begins a blog post from TED curator Chris Anderson, responding directly to NJ's reporting on the decision not to post Nick Hanauer's talk on income inequality. (A talk which, incidentally, Anderson has now posted on YouTube.) Anderson had previously only responded to NJ's questions with a written statement.
In his blog post, Anderson writes that "a non-story about a talk not being chosen, because we believed we had better ones, somehow got turned into a scandal about censorship. Which is like saying that if I call the New York Times and they turn down my request to publish an op-ed by me, they're censoring me.
"For the record, pretty much everyone at TED, including me, worries a great deal about the issue of rising inequality. We've carried talks on it in the past, like this one from Richard Wilkinson. We'd carry more in the future if someone can find a way of framing the issue that is convincing and avoids being needlessly partisan in tone."
Read the whole Anderson post here.
More on TED: 'Entrepreneurs Would Feel Insulted'
NJ's report Wednesday that a "TED talk" on widening income inequality was too controversial to be posted on Ted.com has created a modest stir on the Internet. Change.org has launched a petition urging organizers to publish the speech by Seattle venture capitalist Nick Hanauer. News outlets have offered to film the talk and post it. Several political and business blogs have picked up the story.
We'll have much more to tell you very soon about Hanauer, his message, and the powerhouse research that supports his radical idea that the middle class is essential to economic growth. In the meantime, here's a little more clarity on why TED curator Chris Anderson chose not to air Hanauer's talk.
It's the full text of an email Anderson sent Hanauer on May 7, explaining why he'd decided not to publish the talk. In it, Anderson takes issue with several of Hanauer's claims about inequality and the economy in his talk - read the full text here - including Hanauer's statement that middle-class consumers, and not businesspeople, are the real job creators in an economy. To Hanauer's statement that businesses only hire as a "last resort," Anderson replies, "I think a lot of business managers and entrepreneurs would feel insulted by that statement as given."
Here's the full email.
More on TED: 'Entrepreneurs Would Feel Insulted'
NJ's report Wednesday that a "TED talk" on widening income inequality was too controversial to be posted on Ted.com has created a modest stir on the Internet. Change.org has launched a petition urging organizers to publish the speech by Seattle venture capitalist Nick Hanauer. News outlets have offered to film the talk and post it. Several political and business blogs have picked up the story.
We'll have much more to tell you very soon about Hanauer, his message, and the powerhouse research that supports his radical idea that the middle class is essential to economic growth. In the meantime, here's a little more clarity on why TED curator Chris Anderson chose not to air Hanauer's talk.
It's the full text of an email Anderson sent Hanauer on May 7, explaining why he'd decided not to publish the talk. In it, Anderson takes issue with several of Hanauer's claims about inequality and the economy in his talk - read the full text here - including Hanauer's statement that middle-class consumers, and not businesspeople, are the real job creators in an economy. To Hanauer's statement that businesses only hire as a "last resort," Anderson replies, "I think a lot of business managers and entrepreneurs would feel insulted by that statement as given."
Here's the full email.
The PowerPoint Slides That Were Too Hot for TED
The idea--that the rich should pay more taxes to close the income inequality gap-- that TED organizers recently decided was too controversial to spread is being shared anyway.
Here's a look at venture capitalist Nick Hanauer's slides from the talk that was deemed to controversial to share:
(RELATED: Read the Speech That's Too Hot for TED)
The PowerPoint Slides That Were Too Hot for TED
The idea--that the rich should pay more taxes to close the income inequality gap-- that TED organizers recently decided was too controversial to spread is being shared anyway.
Here's a look at venture capitalist Nick Hanauer's slides from the talk that was deemed to controversial to share:
(RELATED: Read the Speech That's Too Hot for TED)
The Inequality Speech That TED Won't Show You
Friday update: Read the full profile of Nick Hanauer, and his millionaire's case for the middle class, here.
(RELATED: Why This Speech Was Too Hot for TED)
You'll read a lot more about Hanauer in the next installation of Restoration Calls, which drops tomorrow. In the meantime, check out the full text of a speech Hanauer gave in March at the TED University conference. You can't find the talk online, because TED officials have declared it too politically controversial to post on their web site. You be the judge:
The Inequality Speech That TED Won't Show You
Friday update: Read the full profile of Nick Hanauer, and his millionaire's case for the middle class, here.
(RELATED: Why This Speech Was Too Hot for TED)
You'll read a lot more about Hanauer in the next installation of Restoration Calls, which drops tomorrow. In the meantime, check out the full text of a speech Hanauer gave in March at the TED University conference. You can't find the talk online, because TED officials have declared it too politically controversial to post on their web site. You be the judge:
Age-Old Election Tactics Are in Fact ... Old
Sick of politicians pandering to voters, making vague promises, and smearing their opponents? This month's edition of Foreign Affairs offers some perspective. Those campaign tactics have been with us since ancient Rome.
Here are some gems excerpted from a new translation of The Commentariolum Petitionis, or "Little Handbook on Electioneering," believed to be a memo written by Quintus Cicero to his brother, Marcus Tullius, in 64 B.C. while Marcus was campaigning for consul:
* "You should not make specific pledges either to the Senate or the people. Stick to vague generalities. Tell the Senate you will maintain its traditional power and privileges. Let the business community and wealthy citizens know that you are for stability and peace. Assure the common people that you have always been on their side, both in your speeches and in your defense of their interests in court. . ."
* "A candidate must be a chameleon, adapting to each person he meets, changing his expression and speech as necessary."
* "If you break a promise, the outcome is uncertain and the number of people affected is small. But if you refuse to make a promise, the result is certain and produces immediate anger in a larger number of voters... it is better to have a few people in the Forum disappointed when you let them down than have a mob outside your home when you refuse to promise them what they want. . . ."
* "Finally, as regards the Roman masses, be sure to put on a good show... It also wouldn't hurt to remind them of what scoundrels your opponents are and to smear these men at every opportunity with the crimes, sexual scandals, and corruption they have brought on themselves."
* "The most important part of your campaign is to bring hope to people and a feeling of goodwill toward you."
And my personal favorite:
* "Don't leave Rome! . . . There is no time for vacations during a campaign."
About Restoration Calls
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, in his first inaugural address, told a country struggling under the weight of the Great Depression that the nation needed to take action to rebuild and rejuvenate itself. He said: "Restoration calls, however, not for changes in ethics alone. This Nation asks for action, and action now." It was a time not unlike our own, where misbehavior on Wall Street fed a widespread credit and confidence crisis that swept like a tornado through the U.S. and global economy. And as in 1933, Washington again faces the time-sensitive task of diagnosing how its institutions are ill-equipped to fix the nation's problems, and then building a new system responsive to America's new needs. This project will tell that story, through the eyes of the Americans affected.
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