The Squeezed Middle: The Pressure on Ordinary Workers in America and Britain

The issue of living standards is arguably the biggest challenge facing economists and politicians in the United States and the United Kingdom today. The product of a year-long fellowship at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, The Squeezed Middle brings together leading experts from both sides of the Atlantic to ask what the UK can learn from the US experience of stagnating wages and rising living costs.

American workers have not benefited from growth for an entire generation: adjusting for inflation, the average American worker today earns as much as the average American worker did in 1975. During the last decade British workers have had a similar experience—they can no longer assume that when the economy grows their wages will grow with it. With contributions from a number of leading economic and policy thinkers, this collection analyzes the impact of different policies on those with low to middle incomes and explains what lessons the UK can learn from America’s so-called lost generation. A timely and crucial book, it is essential reading for anyone concerned about the living standards crisis and will have great relevance to policy makers and researchers in the UK, United States, and beyond.