"How resistance to fix economic inequality is tied to the persistent myth of meritocracy, and how to change the narrative"--

A Note from Eastern Bank Foundation viiPreface: A Mainstream Economist Discovers His Blind Spots ixIntroduction: Like Dives before Lazarus 1Part I The Myth 131 Our National Economic Mythology 172 Public Belief in The Myth: A Survey of Polling Results 353 An Origin Story for The Myth: Roots in the Founding of the Republic 49Part II The Facts 574 How Broken Are We? Low (and Unequal) Incomes 635 How Broken Are We? The Distribution of Wealth 796 Broken Work: The Prevalence and Characteristics of "Low-Quality" Jobs 937 The Rest of the Story: More Signs of Brokenness 101Part III The Myth versus the Facts 1138 Evidence against The Myth 1179 This Is Not the Only Way: International Comparisons 131Part IV Broken by Design: How We Have Chosen to Create and Sustain Our Broken System 13710 The History of Systems That Have Been Shaped by The Myth 143Part V The Wreckage 17911 The Loss Looking Backward 18312 The Loss Looking Forward 189Part VI What Are You Prepared to Do? The Way Forward 19713 Change the Narrative 20114 How to Get There: A Program to Build Human and Financial Capital 20915 The Other Half of the Battle: Implementation Matters 239Conclusion: A Vision of Opportunity 247Acknowledgments 249Notes 255Bibliography 295Index 337