Kearney quoted in Washington Post article on economic inequality in large cities
Andrew Van Dam writes an extensive review of a new report by leading labor economist David Autor of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that was commissioned by the Aspen Institute. The report is an examination of Urban Centers as an economic driver. Historically, workers have been drawn to cities for the opportunities and higher income that come with those opportunities, particularly for the underemployed, rural residents. It has been a driver of the middle class.
Faculty Associate Melissa Kearney, who directs the Economic Strategy Group at the Aspen Institute which commissioned the paper told Van Dam, "What we learn from Autor's work is that non-college workers can no longer expect that moving to a high-paying city will be a mechanism of upward mobility". Additionally, there is a new layer of difficulty for black and Hispanic workers, on top of less wage growth. Kearney notes, "Minority populations are bearing the public health and economic costs of this current pandemic recession harder than others and that this is just another episode where we're seeing that the least advantaged among us are bearing the largest burdens."