"The American Dream - that if you work hard, you get ahead - is faltering. Over the last generation, the US has experienced the loss of mass upward mobility: it is no longer the case that each generation can expect to do better than the last. A growing gap between productivity and pay, a sharp rise in economic inequality, and limited social mobility have combined to create a squeeze on middle-class living standards whose origins stretch back to well before the most recent recession.""This volume introduces some of the leading US thinkers on living standards. From a variety of perspectives, the writers reflect on what lessons British policy makers might take from the lopsided growth that the US has experienced. The book is organized into three parts. The opening section sets the scene by looking at recent labour market developments. The middle section considers specific policy issues, from creating quality work, to raising incomes, to building greater economic security. Finally, a concluding section looks ahead to future challenges."Now, both of the above quotes come from the Introduction and roughly layout the entirety of the book's premise. Here is what I enjoyed the most about this slim volume: It is nearly all facts and figures inside. That is to say, regardless of the reader's political opinions, this is a very useful collection of essays which everyone should want to read. These apolitical articles are the foremost reason I endorse this book. While each essay captures a different topic, each one is also unattached to any particular ideology, political party, or economic dogma. Each chapter is succinct and persuasive as well. Given that this is such a short book, I would really recommend it to anyone looking for some well documented data on why it has become so hard to get ahead in the West, without having to filter out someone else's hidden political agenda.Some other books that might be of interest in this same vein include: The Rich Don't Always Win: The Forgotten Triumph over Plutocracy that Created the American Middle Class, 1900-1970, A Nation of Moochers: America's Addiction to Getting Something for Nothing, The Trap: Selling Out to Stay Afloat in Winner-Take-All America, or The Haves and the Have-Nots: A Brief and Idiosyncratic History of Global Inequality. Lastly, I picked out two my favorite quotes and put them here below:"From the post-Second World War period into the 1970s in the US, productivity and pay grew in tandem, as economic theory would predict. But starting in the mid-1970s, productivity began to far outpace the growth of compensation. Between 1973 and 2009, productivity in the US grew by 92.6% while the average hourly compensation (wages plus benefits) grew by just 10.3%. ... The break in the tight relationship between productivity growth and wage growth for most workers meant that the gains of the last three and a half decades went almost entirely to the upper echelons of the wage distribution. ... In other words, wages for the median man working full time, full year have seen no growth in almost four decades.""The key to rising wages during the post-war golden age was that many US firms faced limited product market competition, limited pressure from shareholders to maximize near-term profits and significant pressure from unions (or threat of unions) to pass on a "fair" share of profits to employees. Each of these three institutional features is gone, and it is unlikely that they will return. Moreover, a host of additional developments now push against wage growth: technological change, stagnant educational attainment, the shift of employment from manufacturing to services, a more general trend away from middle-paying jobs, a rise in less-skilled immigration, growing prevalence of winner-take-all labour markets, a shift towards pay for performance and minimum wage decline."