What we can do about income inequality

A new Brookings Institution study points to a 'permanent' inequality of income in the US, mainly because workers haven't adapted to rapid technological change. Reducing this underclass starts with workers themselves.

|
AP Photo
Justin Bredeau tries out a Sony 3-D personal viewer at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas last January. As mid-skill, mid-pay jobs disappear, a growing number of technologists and economists wonder if middle-class jobs will return when the economy recovers, or are they lost forever because of the advance of technology.

One of the most head-scratching questions among American economists these days is this: With unprecedented opportunities to expand one’s skills, knowledge, and even character, why has inequality in income gone up?

Why aren’t the many new pathways for self-improvement – online education, for example – liberating almost all workers?

A new study from the Brookings Institution begins to crack this hard nut. It not only suggests that a decades-long rise in inequality has become “permanent” for many workers but that the rapid change in technologies is probably the main driver. A lasting underclass of workers simply isn’t keeping up with the new types of jobs.

The study is unusual for its hard data. It relied on the tax returns of thousands of male workers between 1987 and 2009. Men were the focus because they accounted for 54 percent of household income compared with 26 percent from women. And today’s strong workplace bias toward higher levels of skills has hit men harder than women, in both factory jobs and, increasingly, desk jobs.

The study’s results point to the need to motivate people toward broadening their view of their own potential to advance in new careers. A more dynamic marketplace that destroys and creates jobs at a faster clip requires a more dynamic development of individuals in reinventing themselves.

The usual supports for such change – family upbringing, government programs, teachers, and mentors – can only do so much to reduce barriers, calm fears of insecurity, and open opportunities. Given the pace of change, the burden lies increasingly on individuals themselves to align to new types – and styles – of work.

A common mistake for many laid-off workers is to simply seek knowledge in a new field. That certainly helps, for a while. But adapting to ever-changing technologies requires a mental agility to see new ideas and detect patterns.

It also requires character traits for being successful in a collaborative workplace, such as self-discipline and social skills for teamwork. Qualities of thought matter more than quantities of information.

Workers who especially embrace creativity will be able to keep up with the new products and services created by science and technology. Richard Florida, who writes books on this new “creative class” and works at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management, says we can’t blame technology for the class divide between low-skilled and high-skilled workers. He offers this advice in a Chronicle of Higher Education article:

“Unlike the services we produce, the technologies we create, or the knowledge and information that is poured into our heads, creativity is an attribute we all share. It is innate in every human being. But it is also social, it lives among us: We make each other creative....

“Instead of looking at technology as a simple artifact that imposes its will on us, we should look at how it affects our social and economic arrangements – and how we have failed to adapt them to our circumstances.”

So, yes, let’s invest more in two-parent families that eat meals together, more pre-K schooling, less discrimination in hiring, more Internet education, and so on. But altering the circumstances for individuals to keep up with the new jobs should not diminish the need for individuals to find their own bootstraps.

Everyone can use a lift but the lifting starts for those who are willing to gain a new view of themselves.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to What we can do about income inequality
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/the-monitors-view/2013/0326/What-we-can-do-about-income-inequality
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe