Louis Uchitelle, who writes on economics for The New York Times and other publications, is the author of The Disposable American: Layoffs and Their Consequences. He is currently at work on a book about manufacturing.
Establishing lower pay for new hires, these agreements have undermined union solidarity by opening a gulf between generations.
Blaming themselves for their plight, the unemployed don’t look to protest—or to government—for a way out.
A second round of responses from economists and wonks to Thomas Geoghegan’s Nation essay “What Would Keynes Do?”
Middle-class dreams have been deferred as the recession shrinks the two-income family.