Government's Value to the Economy

While many Americans continue to struggle with unemployment and financial distress in the aftermath of the Wall Street crisis of the late 2000s, it is increasingly recognized that these acute problems are symptomatic of deeper negative trends in our economy, decades in the making. Amid widening inequalities, little or no wage growth except for the most affluent, and rising fixed costs for education, health, and other key stepping stones for upward mobility, America’s once solid and expanding middle class is increasingly fragile and, for too many Americans, increasingly inaccessible. The financial meltdown only accelerated these trends, bringing new urgency to the challenge of restoring and expanding middle-class living standards in the twenty-first century economy.