On America’s Middle Class

by Don Boudreaux on July 2, 2009

in Data, Fooled by Randomness, Myths and Fallacies, Standard of Living, The Hollow Middle

In two of his Forbes columns, NYU's Thomas Cooley challenges – with data – the widespread misunderstanding that America's middle-class is disappearing.  Here, and then here.

(HT Greg Mankiw)  The Terry Fitzgerald work that Cooley mentions was mentioned here at the Cafe a while back.

I raise, though, one objection to Cooley's otherwise excellent columns.  In the first one linked to above, he credits technological change for the explosive economic growth of the 1980s and 1990s.  I don't accept technology as an explanation.  A rush of technology has causes; it must be explained.  Technology is not a variable exogenous to economic growth.

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