Inequality and Education

INEQUALITY AND EDUCATION

In the early 20th century, there was a campaign in the US sometimes called the “high school movement” to assure young people were prepared for better jobs. “This gave US workers a tremendous advantage as ‘America educated its youth to a greater extent than did most, if not every European country…By the 1930s, America was virtually alone in providing universally free and accessible secondary schools.’ Widening inequality in the US by the end of the 20th century reflected not so much the speed of technological change, as a shortfall in willingness to continue investing in education.”

We could have inaugurated a publicly funded “college and vocational education movement” instead of being satisfied with an incomplete postsecondary education effort, reliant mostly on families for funding. “Fifty to 60 percent of the rise in US wage inequality since 1980 grew out of a slowdown in educational advances relative to continuing growth in demand for college-educated workers, which widened the pay differential between those with and without college degrees…Other factors include the decline in unions, the erosion of the federal minimum wage, the surge in executive and other top-end compensation, and the fissuring of supply chains with increased domestic outsourcing, greater use of the gig economy, and international offshoring…” 

Source: Finance and Development, a quarterly publication of the International Monetary Fund, Dec 2023, profile of Lawrence S. Katz, Harvard economist.