It's getting to the point where even a college degree isn't going to save you from a lifetime of debt and employment insecurity. A gap doesn't actually mean much of anything if everyone's wages are flat and stagnant, and no one has money to safely build equity. Most of us, college degrees or no, are living hand to mouth based on a high cost of living and wages that don't keep up. The WSJ still acts like we're in the 1950s. Yeah, there's a gap between the college educated and everyone else, but there's a more substantial gap between executives/managers and the rest of us, and few people are doing great.

@1) sorry dude, fixed almost immediately.

Well right, but is that because of whether a specific person is highly educated or not, or the fact that wages have gone down faster for unskilled jobs vs skilled?

Adding the requirement of a college degree to janitorial/retail jobs isn't going to magically put them up in in the $25+ an hour category.

Have you been following the story about using the wrong numbers ?

http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2…
“There is one important caveat," he writes. None of the source data at the basis of Piketty’s work is completely reliable. While this post is clear about what is wrong with Piketty’s charts, it is much less certain about the truth.”

What is clear, as of now, is that Piketty will have to explain in further detail his methods and his math — and that, as always, even the most popular and influential of economic theories is only as good as the data supporting it. When it comes to studying wealth in particular, choosing precisely which data to measure, and how to slice it and dice it, is bound to be messy.

http://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles…
Piketty states, "From 1980 to 1990, under the presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush, the federal minimum wage remained stuck at $3.25, which led to a significant decrease in purchasing power when inflation is factored in. It then rose to $5.25 under Bill Clinton in the 1990s and was frozen at that level under George W. Bush before being increased several times by Barack Obama after 2008." (page 309).

Wrong, Professor Piketty. The federal hourly minimum wage rose twice in the presidency of George H.W. Bush, from $3.35 to $3.80 in 1990 and then to $4.25 in 1991, a 27 percent total increase. Then, under President Clinton, it rose to $4.75 in 1996 and $5.15 (not $5.25, as Piketty states) in 1997, a 21 percent total increase.

The next increase in the minimum wage, from $5.15 to $7.25 over three years, a 41 percent increase, was signed into law in 2007 by President George W. Bush. The federal minimum rose to $5.85 in 2007, to $6.55 in 2008, and to $7.25 in 2009. President Obama has not yet signed a minimum wage increase into law, despite beginning his first term with the political advantage of a Democratic Congress.

One might overlook one isolated error as sloppiness to which we are all susceptible. But Professor Piketty's supposed history of changes in the minimum wage is not tarnished by a single error, but by a vast array of systematic errors.

I need to know more about Sasquatch please

#5: Glad to see you're already parroting the neoliberal/conservative talking points. Picketty is in the process of addressing all the purported errors identified by the Financial Times (people should also be aware that while the economists at the FT are the real deal the publication is pretty well known to champion neoclassical/neoliberal ideology). I'd like to actually wait to see where the exchange between Picketty and the FT goes before signing up for your snide Fox News-ready commentary. It was pretty well inevitable that economists and pseudo-economists on the right (personally I think the whole field is pseudoscience, but that's just me) would have their knives out the second anyone questioned their orthodoxy. So, pore through the data to find the errors to discredit an unpopular idea. And btw, not all economic theories are based on sound data. The entire Austrian school, for example, is pretty much just made up.

@8, wow, I'm not advocating for either side but the story I heard this weekend on NPR sounded like some of the data was dubious. Not sure if that extends to the conclusions.

http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/05/26/pi…
But over weekend, the Financial Times published an analysis arguing that Piketty’s “estimates of wealth inequality are undercut by a series of problems and errors.”

Piketty has welcomed the open debate, saying that is why put all his data online, but is arguing that any mistakes with data do not change the fundamental conclusion of his work.

The music stopped and there's 8 chairs and 90 people.

What are you going to do about it?

@5 writes "using the wrong numbers"

@10 writes "I'm not advocating for either side "

riiiiight

@11 JBITDMFOTP

In addition, Tyson may have caught Gary Gulman's act...In This Economy...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpyBfz7z…

That sounds like a straw man argument to me. Who doesn't expect college graduates on average to earn more than non-college graduates? Who doesn't expect skilled laborers to earn more than non-skilled laborers? Who doesn't expect doctors to earn more than fast food workers?

The point of debate is whether the share of income enjoyed by those who work is fair against the share of income enjoyed by those who simply own.

#18

You know why Bill Gates is wealthy? Because he was a Revolutionary. He overturned all of traditional information processing, he destroyed and laid waste to hundreds of companies and jobs. He eviscerated IBM and CA and mainframe companies. He seized their assets and took their workers as conscripts in his geek army. He didn't go around looking at COBOL programmers and Xerox execs, and whine about how a bunch of lazy asses were getting paid and not doing much work. He put them out of business!

Any future transfer must be as sweeping...

The music stopped and 1 person has 999,999 chairs and says the other 1,000,000 of us should be satisfied with the 1 chair he doesn't inherit or steal

The 99% can always amuse themselves by whining about their $120,000+ in student loan debts for a degree that qualifies them to pull my double latte and flip my burgers.

@21, if they knew your opinions, they'd probably poison your lattes and your hamburgers. So perhaps you should stop commenting.

Nah, I think I'll continue to mock the student debt 'crisis' crowd. I expect someone signing loan documents to look at expected incomes in their chosen field of endeavor. Oh, the inhumanity of expecting people to make choices and live with the outcomes. I should clearly be poisoned for having such an evil outlook. Or perhaps you could put two seconds worth of contemplation into your comments.

@24: Sure, but still, you keep insulting the people who make your food, they will shit in it. I'm sure you don't keep those opinions on the QT when you're out and about.

@25 Anyone who would, or would even advocate, poisoning food is a crazed nutjob.

If a position advocating personal responsibility, and mocking a crisis manufactured to avoid personal responsibility leads someone to become a poisoner they were likely enough going to do something awful anyways.

24: You must be so happy being a member of the ruling elite, or at least thinking you are.

The 'ruling elite' who expect people to borrow wisely, and live up to their obligations? Yes, I'm extremely happy to be a part of that community, thanks :D

How are you enjoying being a member of the stupid comments made by idiots brigade? That working out well for you?

@29

People ought to borrow wisely, but shouldn't they lend wisely as well? And if they lend unwisely, shouldn't they pay the price for their poor decisions?

And if we find ourselves in the sort of crisis where sticking to our moral absolutism would destroy the economy, why would we choose to make the borrowers suffer, while rescuing the lenders from their own stupid decisions?

Yes, people who have a higher level of education or more likely to make more. But people who come from wealthier families are more likely to afford the education in the first place, and more likely to have good connections upon graduating. I don't see this mentioned in the WSJ summary. Also, since minimum wage hasn't gone up in years, this is going to inflate the disparity more for people in service type jobs who are less likely to have a college education.

So this conclusion that the value of a degree is increasing is bogus as it is the result of a faulty correlation.

@29: You know TC, the more you post the more you sound like Seattleblues. Maybe the two of you should get together and swap home improvement tips.

@32 Hey there Lissa. Last time we chatted we made the discovery that the word 'Thug' means 'black person' to you. How are you coming with your racism? You get together with juche yet? I'm sure the two of you have some good racist tips to swap.

Did you go back and read my reply?
And did you see in the following days that SPD affirmed what I had been saying all along? That it is their job to serve and protect the entire city of Seattle? Including the Sourh End?

I'm not sure why you disagree with them.

"Did you go back and read my reply?"

No, I try to limit my interaction with racists. I did read that the SPD had canvassed the appropriate area twice, which obliterated every ill conceived point you tried to make and left the racism and paternalism to stand on it's own "merit".

Sorry, "South" End. :)

All I ever said was that, no matter how difficult it is the job of SPD to serve and protect the entire city of Seattle.
And they agree with me; that is their job.
That indeed, as you so eloquently put it, they [are] supposed to come door to door after every violent crime in that shitty fucked up ghetto.
You seem to think that they shouldn't.
I was so glad to read that they agreed with me, and well, every one else on that thread.
It is a relief to know, that even if they may some times fall short, that they do realize their duty to all our citizens.

If the one percent all send their kids to college, the scions of inherited wealth will all be college graduates even though their education isn't the cause of their money. College grads do out-earn high school grads, but saying that the huge rise of inequality is all about education is relying on a deceptive correlation.

I have a college degree and I'm still a single mum struggling, with 3 kids, owning nothing but an old car and not enough money in the bank to buy the same one but brand new.

On the good side, the capitalists have long been restrained in my country, so although I'm not earning much, and a lot less than e.g. a plumber without a college degree, my short hours allow me to feed and educate my litter, so that my kittens don't become a danger to society when grown up.

The capitalists would like me to have to work two full-time jobs just to get by, like in the US ; my kids becoming criminals from lack of parental presence don't worry them, they have enough money to pay for their own security.

The difference between me and an US single mom on welfare is : CAPITALISM. Not my college degree.