Disappearing middle class: job polarization and policy approaches

Abstract

The creeping hollowing out of the middle class and the simultaneous rise of automation have become hotly debated topics in the popular media and among policymakers, and there is certainly no shortage of dire predictions about the ascent of robots and subsequent obsolescence of workers. But – doomsday prophecies aside – what are the facts? What is happening to workers, specifically middle-class ones? And, from a policy perspective, what can (or should) be done to address this fundamental shift in who – or what – does which jobs? This P Show more