How College Education Divided America

Shortly after pandemic-era travel restrictions eased, I flew to Washington, D.C., for a meeting with leaders from left-leaning foundations.

The topic was close to my heart: combating inequality and constructing a new narrative about reversing huge and widening income disparities.

I expected the focus to be on the jarring increase in earnings inequality over the last four decades, led by the declining wages of workers, and especially men, without college degrees.

To my surprise, nobody seemed to comment on the stagnation and decline in the wages of non-college workers.

Nor was there any discussion of how inequality between residents of small cities and large metropolitan areas had surged.

Instead, commentator after commentator talked about gender inequality, racial inequality, and inequality affecting sexual minorities.

These are all important topics, of course, but if our aim was to understand the surge in inequality at the aggregate level, much of the story was about jobs and opportunities for Americans without college education .

As I was traveling back to Boston, another event crystallized my unease about American political trends.

Seeing that my flight was delayed by an hour, I decided to get a drink.

At the bar by my gate, the only opening was next to a burly gentleman around my age.

As I ordered a beer, he asked me whether my flight was also delayed.

I nodded ruefully and said it wasn’t too bad.

He proceeded to talk about football , a topic I know little about.

But I welcomed the distraction, and over the next hour, we broached several other topics: the annoyances of air travel, beer, the challenges of the small business he was running, politics, and basketball, about which I knew a little more than football.