Washington, D.C. — For several decades, politicians and economists have thought that high levels of inequality were good for the economy. But as Center for American Progress Managing Director of Economic Policy David Madland explains in his new book, Hollowed Out, America’s economy now suffers from the kinds of problems that plague less-developed countries. The decline of the American middle class has destabilized consumer demand, undermined trust, exacerbated governmental failures, and limited the development of human capital. As Hollowed Out details, in order to have strong and sustainable growth, the economy needs to work for everyone and grow from the middle out.
On Monday, November 9, the California Budget & Policy Center will host Madland for a conversation about Hollowed Out and its implications for America’s economy, democracy, and the middle class. Madland is a native of the Bay Area and a graduate of the University of California, Berkeley.
Hollowed Out is particularly timely because the 2016 election is shaping up to be a battle of middle-out economics against trickle-down economics, with progressive ways of thinking about the economy providing a strong rebuttal to the trickle-down theory that inequality helps the economy. The new thinking about the costs of inequality has set the stage for transformative political conflict that will shape economic policymaking for generations. Read an exclusive excerpt of Hollowed Out and an interview with Madland about the book in Salon.
WHO:
Featured author:
David Madland, Author, Hollowed Out; Managing Director, Economic Policy, Center for American Progress
In conversation with:
Carol Zabin, Director of Research, Center for Labor Research and Education, University of California, Berkeley; Chair, Don Vial Center for Employment in the Green Economy
Moderated by:
Foon Rhee, Associate Editor, The Sacramento Bee
WHEN:
Monday, November 9, 2015
2:30 p.m. PT
WHERE:
University of California Center Sacramento
1130 K Street, Suite LL22
Sacramento, California, 95814
For more information, contact Allison Preiss at [email protected] or 202.478.6331.
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