America is Regressing into a Developing Nation for Most People

Note: In an effort to center New Economic Thinking in the discussion of the COVID-19 crisis, the publisher has curated a list of relevant Evonomics articles —including this one.

The U.S. is no longer one country, but dividing into two separate economic and political worlds.

You’ve probably heard the news that the celebrated post-WW II beating heart of America known as the middle class has gone from “burdened,” to “squeezed” to “dying.”  But you might have heard less about what exactly is emerging in its place.

In a new book, The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy, Peter Temin, Professor Emeritus of Economics at MIT, draws a portrait of the new reality in a way that is frighteningly, indelibly clear:  America is not one country anymore. It is becoming two, each with vastly different resources, expectations, and fates.

Read the full book review here.