For years, we have seen the richer get richer in America and the poor stagnate or lose economic ground.  Even the 2024 election was won by Donald Trump because many who voted for him felt that the middle- class life they wanted was becoming out of reach, even though the macro-economic indices were saying things were going well. Now, along comes a recently revised 2023 study by MIT researchers showing that over the past four years wage inequality has shrunk dramatically.  What? Since the 1980’s wage inequality has been mostly a one-way street, with the benefits of wage growth going to those with more education and skills while those with fewer of these characteristics seeing lower wage growth.  That fact makes it surprising to see, in the MIT study, that real wage increases among workers without college degrees have reversed nearly one-third of the cumulative wage inequality from 1980 to 2019.  This is a remarkable turnaround. On today’s podcast we explore the reasons behind it with Brent Orrell, a Senior Fellow for Domestic Policy with the American Enterprise Institute(aei.org).