This book addresses what is perhaps the most salient issue in American politics today: the decline of the middle class. It is this single issue that drove the outlier presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump to national prominence, and undergirded the electoral victory of Donald Trump. While there are other longer studies exploring in detail the structural forces, most prominently the loss of manufacturing in the US, that have caused the contraction of the middle class, none offer in shorter form practical policy solutions directly geared towards practitioners in government and the private sector. This work focuses specifically on combining both an academic analysis of the subject combined with detailed policy recommendations. These recommendations are designed to be implemented; they take into account the latest set of real world political variables such as actual current legislative and institutional agendas currently in play on the federal and local levels.

Provides a short academic analysis of the structural forces resulting in the decline of the American middle-class Offers concrete policy recommendations for middle-class jobs creation Written by an academic and policy practitioner, lending both theoretical and action-based perspectives to the issue of jobs creation

Autorentext

Abraham Unger is Associate Professor of Government and Director of Urban Programs at Wagner College, USA, and Senior Research Fellow at the Carey Institute for Government Reform. Dr. Unger combines public service and consulting in the arena of jobs creation and urban economic development with an academic career. He has served as a member of the Staten Island Borough President's Strategic Policy Advisory Committee.

Inhalt

1. What Happened to the American Middle Class?.- 2. A Path Forward for Jobs Creation.- 3. The Politics of Growth.