When a college degree is no longer a ticket to the middle class

“No matter how it’s defined, we know the U.S. labor market is not working well for families in the middle. Real wages have hardly budged in four decades, and most of the wage growth that has occurred has gone to the highest earners, accentuating America’s economic polarization. The top 20 percent of earners saw their incomes rise by 95 percent in real terms between 1979 and 2014, whereas the middle three quintiles recorded just 28 percent growth, according to the Congressional Budget Office.”