The Great Recession has deepened a long-term trend (briefly reversed in the late 1990s) toward a hollowing out of America’s middle class, with job growth predominantly at lower and higher incomes and growing wage inequality. Even after the job losses of the recession are erased, a deeper challenge remains: how to create good, well-paid jobs to sustain and grow America’s middle class.
The Hamilton Project and the Center for American Progress hosted the first of two conferences addressing the implications of the competitive global economy and rapid technological change for the challenge of creating high-paying jobs in the United States. The conference featured the release of a new paper by MIT economics professor David Autor that analyzes the long-term trends in employment, earnings, and job opportunities, followed by two panels of academics, policy thinkers, and policymakers, and capped off with a thought-provoking dialogue between one of the President’s top economic advisors and the mayor of the nation’s largest city.
Agenda
Opening Remarks
John Podesta
President and Chief Executive Officer, Center for American Progress
Robert E. Rubin
Co-Chair, Council on Foreign Relations
Former U.S. Treasury Secretary
The State of the U.S. Labor Market
David Autor
Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Panel Discussion: Economic Growth and Job Creation
Alan J. Auerbach
Professor of Economics, University of California Berkley
Michael Greenstone
Director, The Hamilton Project; Professor of Economics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Alan B. Krueger
Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy, Treasury Department
John van Reenen
Director, Centre for Economic Performance, London School of Economics
Moderator: Chrystia Freeland
Global Editor-at-Large, Reuters
Panel Discussion: The American Worker
Ron Blackwell
Chief Economist, AFL-CIO
Heather Boushey
Senior Economist, Center for American Progress
Lawrence Katz
Professor of Economics, Harvard University
Cecilia Rouse
President’s Council of Economic Advisers
Moderator: Greg Ip
U.S. Economics Editor, The Economist
Closing Session
Moderator: Charlie Rose
Host, Charlie Rose
Michael Bloomberg
Mayor, New York City
Lawrence H. Summers
Director, National Economic Council
