Katherine Geier at the Washington Monthly on how an unskilled workforce is not the main cause of soaring inequality: One common refrain we hear from a lot of conservatives, and some centrists, too, is that the reason many Americans aren’t getting ahead in this economy is that they’re “unskilled” and undereducated. If only they went to college — that would do the trick! Sending more people to college has been recommended as the main policy fix for inequality by everyone from the National Review’s Marcus Winters to centrist economists like Claudia Goldin and Lawrence Katz. While making college more affordable is a great idea, there are good reasons to be extremely skeptical about the notion that an undereducated workforce is to blame to soaring economic inequality. Evidence in support of this argument can be found in the Bureau of Labor Statistics report released last month, Characteristics of Minimum Wage Workers, 2013. According to the report, there are 260,000 worker’s with bachelor’s degrees and 200,000 workers with associate’s degrees who are making the minimum wage. As a reminder, the federal minimum wage is $7.25 an hour, and the minimum wage for tipped workers is a shockingly low $2.13 an hour. In some cities and states, the minimum wage is higher, but the BLS report defines only those making $7.25 an hour or less as minimum wage workers. -Erika
Posted on: Sun, 06 Apr 2014 19:30:00 +0000
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