The Vanishing Middle Class: Prejudice and Power in a Dual Economy

Why the United States has developed an economy divided between rich and poor—and how racism helped bring this about.

The United States is becoming a nation of rich and poor, with few families in the middle. In this book, MIT economist Peter Temin offers an illuminating way to look at the vanishing middle class. Temin argues that American history and politics, particularly slavery and its aftermath, play an important part in the widening gap between rich and poor. Temin employs a well-known, ...