Degrees and Dollars

Paul Krugman argues that

It is a truth universally acknowledged that education is the key to economic success. Everyone knows that the jobs of the future will require ever higher levels of skill. That’s why, in an appearance Friday with former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, President Obama declared that “If we want more good news on the jobs front then we’ve got to make more investments in education.”

But what everyone knows is wrong.

More debate here and here

How do you keep morale up in an economy when more people are simply less necessary than they used to be? 

That’s a harder question to answer than “how do you make sure everyone has access to medical care?” But for a substantial fraction of the population -- not a majority, but certainly millions and millions of people -- it’s an increasingly pressing one. People get trained for a job in their 20s, and then, in their 40s, that industry gets disrupted by technology, or sent to China, and even if some of those people find jobs again, they tend to be at a lower level -- a drop in status and perceived usefulness that’s psychologically devastating. This is a question for not only the future, but given the number of long-term unemployed in the economy right now, the present. And it’s not a question that we have any very good answers for.