Washington • So many policy proposals aimed at reducing economic inequality emphasize moving disadvantaged people into higher-paying, higher-skilled jobs, typically with more access to education and training.
We do need to invest far more in expanding opportunity for fellow citizens who have lost all hope for advancement, but there is a flaw in this thinking, as Steven Dawson argues in “Make Bad Jobs Better,” a compendium of his recent work published earlier this year by the Pinkerton Foundation. If we define success “solely as securing a middle-class job,” he writes, “then we will limit ourselves to helping only a narrow segment of low-income workers improve their lives.