Stagnant or declining wages for less-educated workers make policies to upgrade the job market options for low wage workers an urgent priority. One in three low wage workers lives in a low income family. The link between low basic skills and low wages is strong. No single standard of minimum skill requirements applies to all middle income jobs, and…

American society is based on work. The industrial revolution exposed a growing proportion of the population to unemployment, underemployment, and dislocation. Early theoreticians believed that unemployment was a temporary labor market imbalance that would correct itself with downward wage adjustments. John Maynard Keynes, on the other hand, argued…