They Used to Be Ahead in the American Economy. Now They’ve Fallen Behind.
To many Americans, whether you are prospering or not is often measured by whether you have a job and how much it pays. But there’s something harder to quantify that’s missing from that picture.
But over 40 years, even as their inflation-adjusted income has remained relatively flat, they’ve fallen well below the average income.
But over 40 years, even as their inflation-adjusted income has remained relatively flat, they’ve fallen well below the average income.
In the reordering of the U.S. economy since 1980, white men without a degree have been surpassed in income by college-educated women.
In the reordering of the U.S. economy since 1980, white men without a degree have been surpassed in income by college-educated women.
What this captures is a sense of relative standing — not just how well you do on your own terms, but how you fare compared with everyone else. In short, a sense of status.
As the American economy has shifted over the past 40 years away from manufacturing and toward services and “knowledge” work, this less visible hierarchy within the economy has shifted, too. Jobs that helped build the nation, like the machinists and metalworkers who were mostly white men without college degrees, today make a shrinking share of what the average American worker does. Newer kinds of work, like financial analysis and software development, have come to pay much more.
