Stevenson links technological advancement to income inequality

January 20, 2023 The Economist

Betsey Stevenson, The Economist: "I think that's a fair assessment, and I think the question is, why? And that's where the complications come in. Some of that is from what economists call skill-biased technological change. So we've seen the wages of college graduates go up and up and up, while the wages of non-college graduates have stagnated. I think that a big part of the challenge is that there's not really good, moderately-high pay in upper-middle-class jobs that don't involve an advanced degree. So we've seen a lot of the way technology has changed, it has changed in a way that's very complementary to skill, and that's created jobs for people with the skills to manage the technology. And the technology has tended to crowd out people whose skills used to be the skills that the technology now has. So those were skilled jobs, but those skills are no longer in as much demand, and I think that's been a real challenge."