Faster economic growth is good for workers. It means higher incomes, more jobs, and greater opportunity. Just look at the U.S. economy. After a nasty recession, the long expansion has driven unemployment down to the lowest level in decades, and wage growth is accelerating — especially for lower-income workers.
Two key ways to make the economy grow faster over the long term are trade and immigration. Which means some Republican-leaning policy wonks face a conundrum in the Age of Trump: How can you be pro-growth, pro-worker, and yet also anti-globalization?
If there's a way to square that circle, it won't be found in The Once and Future Worker, the new book by Oren Cass, a think tanker and former Mitt Romney policy adviser. Although praised by several high-profile conservative wonks and writers, the only thing The Once and Future Worker really demonstrates is that it's devilishly difficult to make sense out of nonsense. And trying to do so forces one to embrace the absurd.
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