Local Wage Growth

High-wage workers in the Washington area are receiving sharply higher raises than their low-paid counterparts, according to an analysis by The Washington Post.

Among the reasons: New technologies and business practices that let companies automate or outsource the work done by those with limited skills.

Post economics writer Neil Irwin was online Tuesday, July 11 at 1 p.m. ET to discuss wage inequality nationally and in a region where the gap between rich and poor is wide and getting wider.

A transcript follows .

Read more here: Well-Paid Benefit Most As Economy Flourishes .

You can also search the Department of Labor data by occupation and metropolitan area online here .

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Neil Irwin: Welcome to the chat. I wrote in yesterday's paper, with my colleague Cecilia Kang, about wage inequality in the Washington area. Turns out, the gap between high-paid and low-paid workers is widening here faster than it is in the rest of the U.S. I'd love to hear your comments and thoughts on whether you're seeing such trends in your industry, and if so, what is driving them.

Here we go . . .

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Northern Virginia: I don't know what the big fuss is. People who receive high wages generally have skills that are in higher demand than those who receive low wages. Of course they should be paid more! I see nothing unfair about that.

My household makes less than 45K a year, and this article makes me even more determined to better myself to someday aspire to higher wages.

Neil Irwin: Glad to hear that this information spurs your ambition, but I should be clear about something. No one is surprised that people in high-skill occupations with unique talents (say, CEOs, or orthodontists) make more money than those with neither (say, dishwashers or janitors). What is interesting is that the gap is widening, in that those high-end workers' wages are rising faster in percentage terms than low-end workers'.

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Washington, D.C.: Your story was excellent but got me very upset, because I am one of those low-wage ten-dollar-an-hour (college-graduate) workers. Combined with the article on homelessness and the utter lack of response to the housing crisis, it painted a bleak picture for people like me.

When is the all-powerful U.S. government going to fight a real war on poverty in the U.S., and what are the alternatives for poor people until they do?

Neil Irwin: The best alternative for the working poor is to fight like hell to get an education that will make one qualified for jobs other than those at the bottom end of the wage scale. There is little sign that this difference in wage growth is going away, so the best thing on can do is position oneself to be a beneficiaries.

At the government level, there are things that advocates for the working class say the government could be doing to ameliorate the situation. They advocate raising the minimum wage, though I doubt that would have much impact in the Washington area. They favor changing rules and enforcement practices to give labor unions more power. And many would favor expanding the earned income tax credit or other government policies that help out the working poor.

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Washington, D.C.: Why does the Washington Post take such a negative pose against "rich" people who have made the most of their opportunities and worked hard to be productive enough to deserve a good wage by providing goods and services to their community? Shouldn't The Post wonder why poor people do not make the most of their opportunities in a country where anyone with ambition and a work ethic can make a nice middle class life?

Neil Irwin: I dispute your premise. I'm taking no negative pose against people who have worked hard and become rich. Again, no one disputes that those who work hard and develop valuable skills should make more than their low-skilled counterparts. What is interesting is that the relative rewards for those two types of jobs are changing. The rewards for high-skilled work, already higher than rewards for low-skilled work by a factor of 10, are rising faster in percentage terms. That can make it awfully hard for those trying to climb into the labor market without advanced skills to advance, as the entry level workers we all depend on to clean office buildings, mow lawns, provide security, and clean dishes aren't receiving raises that keep up with inflation.

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Rockville, Md.: It's interesting that you point to outsourcing as a reason for the disparity. I've always been frustrated about sending jobs overseas when there is so much talent here in the U.S. Is this the first true data out there on how outsourcing may be affecting American lives?

Neil Irwin: Keep in mind that outsourcing, while it has become a boogaboo in Lou Dobbsian circles in recent years, is exactly the kind of behavior that one would expect to happen in an increasingly interconnected, globalized world. It is Economics 101: Each country does the tasks in which it has comparative advantage, creating greater wealth for everyone. If, for India, that comparative advantage is in providing Americans with tech support, more power to them.

The intriguing question, though, is whether international outsourcing is evolving so rapidly, and the losers in the US so concentrated in one economic bracket, that the vast swath of Americans who are made more wealthy by globalization owe it to those who are burned (including many manufacturing workers and some low-skill clerical workers) to offer some help.

That's the crux of the debate, the way I see it.

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Washington, D.C: Why did you analyze wage and employment trends by categorizing people according to income versus the occupation or sector in which they are employed? Using your approach, rookie hill staffers and veteran executive assistants fall into the same category and are analyzed together though their wage and job promotion prospects are drastically different. Do you think it's fair to draw the conclusions you do while lumping these people into the same group?

Neil Irwin: You identify one of the weaknesses in my approach. There exists no good data with which to examine income inequality at the local level (except the Census every ten years). I found a workaround, using a survey not designed for this purpose to examine how much the average wage is changing in low-paid versus high-paid jobs in the region.

It is true that some of the people who, say, were low-paid food prep workers got promoted to be chefs, and thus got a raise. In the aggregate, though, using these numbers gives a sense of how labor market conditions are changing at different points on the skill and income scale.

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Washington, D.C.: Shouldn't inequality of wages be seen as a sign of a healthy meritocracy? After all, if you attended a race where everyone finished first, wouldn't you suspect that the race was fixed? Why would we want to fix our economy so that everyone made the same wage, regardless of effort and ability?

Neil Irwin: Of course our nation is a capitalist society, and an economic meritocracy. What is intriguing is that the way those rewards are being distributed is becoming more lopsided over time.

It makes sense that the CEO would make more than his secretary. What I'm pointing out is that (to make up some numbers), he used to make five times as much, now makes ten times as much, and, if the present trend continues, in a few years will make 20 times as much.

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St. Petersburg, Fla.: Mr. Irwin,

I found your article really interesting and was curious if you thought this widening was caused primarily by policy decisions made by our government or some other cause. Secondly I was curious what actions you would advocate in order to curb this widening gap? Thank you.

Neil Irwin: Based on my reporting, I don't believe that government policies are a major factor in the shifting wage gap over the last couple of years. It is true that the minimum wage is declining in inflation-adjusted terms, and that the tax code is less progressive than it was in 2001, and many would argue that government policies in recent years are weakening labor unions. But based on my interviews with economists and executives, I get the sense that broad changes in technology and business practices are the main drivers of the widening income gap, and that the government factors I mention have had more marginal effects.

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Arlington, Va.: I don't think it's entirely right that the growing wage gap has nothing to do with the stagnant minimum wage. I do think, and I would love to see if there is any data out there on this, that employers to some extent base wages relative to the minimum wage. If the government sent a signal (which is all it would be in practice unless Congress raised it to $15/hr), by raising the minimum wage, that it wanted higher wages there would be more pressure at the lower end of the wage scale to raise wages. Oh, and for all you people who think you did it all on your own and poor people are just lazy - please, we all know plenty of lazy rich people, and plenty of hard working poor. Luck has a hand in more than we'd care to admit.

Neil Irwin: I'm not sure I agree with you. Employers set wages based on supply and demand. They seek to pay what they have to pay to get a qualified worker, and not a dime more. The lowest paid job in the Washington area is shampooers, who are paid an average of $16,550 a year, which works out to $7.96 per hour. The current minimum wage is $5.50, and even most proposals to increase it would only bring it up to about $7 per hour.

It's an interesting argument you make, but I'm not sure I buy it. An increase in the minimum wage would likely have a greater impact in parts of the country where wages are starting from a lower point, however.

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Washington, D.C.: Your suggestion for strengthening labor unions invites suggests an alternative to the U.S. labor market: France.

The alternative may not be some utopia where incomes are more equal the lot of everyone is improving but rather a stagnant, high unemployment economy with less wage dispersion. Is that a worthy trade off?

Neil Irwin: It seems like a false dichotomy to me to suggest that the U.S. and France are the only ways one can run a labor market. Many left-of-center economists would argue that you can have modest redistribution of the gains of globalization and stronger protections for workers without the extremely restrictitve policies you have in Germany and France, which, as you note, is a factor in sluggish economic growth, high unemployment, and a moribund corporate sector.

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Richmond, Va.: What type of industries are paying higher wages? If i were to advise my college kids now what industry they should target, what should be my recomendations?

washingtonpost.com: Here's the online database of Occupational Employment and Wage Estimates

Neil Irwin: It doesn't make much sense to me for young people to choose a career path based on economic projections (aside from avoiding, say, the auto industry and other obviously troubled sectors of the US economy). They should choose a basic field that they love, and try to do everything they can to position themselves to be the winners in that field. If it's medicine, ensure they can be doctors or registered nurses, rather than home health aides. If finance, that they can be accountants or managers rather than clerical workers. If technology, that they are not simple code jockeys or tech support folks whose jobs can be outsourced, but managerial types who understand the way technology works in broader business goals.

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McLean, Va.: Hello Neil,

This is an excellent article on today's economics. But I don't think that a 4:1 ratio of $100K for a financial manager versus $25K for a teller is so unfair. As a consumer, I've become more accustomed to self-service, and I'm not going to pay a premium for basic skills.

Neil Irwin: The intriguing question is that, if the trend I described in my article continues over time, what would be a proper ratio? If things continue as they have been, it will go from 4 to 1, to 5 to 1, and so on. I'm simply describing the trend, not seeking to say whether the gap is fair or not.

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Arlington, Va.: I do believe that hard-work should pay off in your compensation. But can anyone justify a $30 or $15 million salary for a CEO? There used to be a time when CEOs actually only made up to a $1 million. It's actually shocking now to see CEOs who voluntarily take salary cuts when the company is not performing financially well. There is an enormous gap between salaries. Everyone should not be paid equally, but everyone should be paid fairly with excellent medical and dental insurance.

Neil Irwin: The compensation committees of companies that have such salaries would argue that such a salary is justified if the CEO is the absolute right person, and increases the returns to shareholders by billions of dollars. The problem is that many of these compensation committees are stuffed with board members more or less chosen by the CEO whose compensation is being decided.

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Midlothian, Va.: As the wage gap increases, more and more people will leave their low-paying, low skilled jobs and look for higher skilled and higher paying jobs. In the future we will have a shortage of folks who are janitors, cooks, secretaries, etc.

Wouldn't this shortage eventually cause the wages for these types of jobs to go up? So i guess the wage gap is just a temporary thing...

Neil Irwin: Perhaps. The trends I describe as occurring between 2003 and 2005 could shift at any time, perhaps for the reason you're describing. The reality is, though, that they've been occurring for the last 20 years or so, interrupted only by the 1990s expansion, and not many labor economists are expecting that to change.

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Re: Washington, D.C.: Washington, D.C. wrote: "Shouldn't The Post wonder why poor people do not make the most of their opportunities in a country where anyone with ambition and a work ethic can make a nice middle class life?"

I take issue with this statement as it discounts those professions (teacher, firemen, nurse, etc.) that I value highly that are a part of the class that is losing ground. As long as our country greatly rewards those that impact the bottom line, without rewarding those that impact our quality of life this pay disparity will continue to grow. Those people are no less hard working, or ambitious, than others and it is insulting to suggest otherwise.

Neil Irwin: Some thoughts on an earlier comment . . .

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The D.C. Marie Antionette Society: At least that's what appears to be on this chat.

Now some reality...

1. "Get an education" may be a wonderful suggestion for a middle class or up person. Not so wonderful for someone born poor or presently working poor. Exactly when are they supposed to do this, and with what money. Remember that education assistance has been cut over the last 6 years.

2. "Meritocracy". Try again. Study after study has shown that US social mobility is in sharp decline. At present Europe and Japan have much more social mobility than we do. In effect, the US has been stratifying over the past 40 years, where there is a near permanent top 20%, and a churning bottom 80%. The trends you note in your article are merely the ending of this trend, and the nail in the coffin.

(BTW - That's been written up in such radical socialist rags as "The Economist" and "The Wall Street Journal".)

But the "truthiness" DC consensus here makes perfect sense. After 10 years, I've noticed my DC peers tend to be $150K/yr members of the middle class (irony fully intended), and Trust Fund Kiddies who believe they are perfect examples of "merit in action".

Neil Irwin: Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

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Maryland: Hi - it seems that business owners and high-level decision makers have decided that it is ok to take a larger portion of the pie, leaving less for lower-level workers. We often hear of workers being paid less and less, but costs of doing business staying the same. The difference is that those in charge are keeping more of the profit. This also applies to outsourced work - yes, they are outsourcing work to save money, but it is only affecting THEIR profits. I am curious about how this has changed over the years. Am I naive, or did business owners -care- more for their employees in the past? That would make an interesting article in the paper by the way; contrasting business philosophies of say the 60's and 70's with those of today.

Neil Irwin: Ah, but they wouldn't be able to take a larger portion of the pie unless the supply and demand environment in the labor market allowed them to. Owners of businesses (aka shareholders) are always going to want to keep as much profit as possible. Companies are always going to want to pay workers as little as possible. The difference is there have been times, including the late 1990s and most of the middle of the twentieth century, when they weren't able to keep low-wage workers' wages stagnant, because the labor market conditions of the day wouldn't let them; they bid up wages for low-wage workers as surely as wages for skilled professionals are being bid up today.

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Greenbelt, Md.: I am using this article as a motivator for my kids. My husband and I are an example of the article; I have an MBA, a distinct specialty, and a 6 figure salary, while he only finished high school, and has yet to reach $50k, even though he is middle-aged. However, they don't know that, and don't need to at any time. What they need to realize is that school is desperately important, and that their years in high school had better prepare them for a good college and a career that they can enjoy and GET PAID in.

Neil Irwin: Indeed. Thanks for writing.

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Arlington, Va.: I was wondering if you gave any thought to doing a follow up story comparing the data for the D.C. area with national trends and international trends. There was an interesting piece on this issue in the Economist a few weeks ago, so this issue is something that is more than a D.C./U.S. phenomenon. In my personal opinion, I think Americans are far more comfortable with income inequality - there are numerous studies showing that large percentage of Americans think they will one day be rich, even though that will never be true. I wonder if we didn't think that way, would we be so accepting of such inequality.

Neil Irwin: An interesting area to explore in future stories, thanks.

It is the case that changes in technology in the last 10 years, including the Internet and cheap phone connections, are putting more workers into a more globally competitive environment in a shorter time than perhaps any period in history. What's different now is not that globalization is happening; that's been going on for 500 years. The difference is it's happening faster, and that may be a factor in compression of low-skilled workers' wages worldwide.

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Alexandria, Va.: In terms of high level compensation, what gets me are these executives who get millions of dollars (sometimes 10s of millions) after years of their companies under-performing and cut their workers and their workers' benefits without slashing their own pay or benefits, in fact, the top keeps getting more. What happened to the days of top-down philosophy where it is everyone from the boss to the janitor pulling for the company or was that all just a fantasy?

Neil Irwin: One thought on executive compensation, to be followed immediatley with a counterargument . . .

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Washington, DC: I don't agree that a CEO should take a cut in pay when his company is suffering. That's the time when the best management talent is most needed to keep a company and its jobs afloat. By contrast, a company may often do well by the luck of the market through little effort of its CEO. In such a case, the logic tying the CEO salary to profit seems lame. And why should the public have any say in what the salary of the CEO be as long as the company pays him voluntarily?

Neil Irwin: And that counteragument . . .

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Washington, D.C.: It seems to me that raising the minimum wage is a terrible idea for improving the economy or people's income. How would unskilled labor, who may be illiterate or undisciplined, ever get work if all the jobs for which they were qualified were made illegal because they were below some arbitrary price set by politicians? That would increase the number of jobless and welfare recipients, not raise their wages.

Neil Irwin: An argument on the minimum wage . . .

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Washington, D.C.: You are correct that the "wage gap" has widened but let's be clear about one thing. In the long term, this doesn't mean most people are worse off in absolute sense. The average person at the 50th percentile still makes more than his or her counterpart did in 1955 or 1975 or 1995 after adjusting for inflation. I suppose one could object to the fact the ratio of the wages of those in the 99th percentile relative to those in the 50th percentile has grown, but too many people take that to mean those at the middle are worse off and that isn't what your data indicated.

Neil Irwin: This is an interesting point. That is true when you go back to 1950. The truth is, though, in the last several years the median wage has risen more slowly than inflation. As my data shows, those in the bottom 40 percent of wage scale have received raises considerably less than inflation.

I tend to agree with you that I'm less concerned about how the top 1 pecent of earners are doing relative to the bottom 50 percent and more worried about the fact that, in the last several years, the median American family has received no inflation-adjusted raise.

Might that change as the labor market becomes tighter? Of course it might. But the trend of the past 50 years has not been the reality of this particular economic expansion.

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Burke, Va.: I thought you wrote an imaginative, excellent article. Have you looked at the effect of the income disparity in the area, the effect of unionization (or not) and the living wage bills in local areas (I think Montgomery county and the Fairfax government).

Neil Irwin: We've touched on unionization and the broader impact of income disparity. As for living wage laws, most economic literature suggests that hte kind of living wage laws on the table in Montgomery and Fairfax, in which contractors for the city government must pay some minimum wage along the lines of $10 or $12 an hour, have little broad macroeconomic impact, and function more as a symbolic gesture of support for the working poor. Nothing wrong with that, but one does have to ask whether the extra money the county governments then spend on contracting could instead be spent in better ways to alleviate poverty.

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Neil Irwin: We're running short on time, but have a lot more interesting comments. I'm going to post several of them with little comment.

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Washington, D.C.: Re previous poster:

There is nothing stopping poor people from finishing high school, which is the stepping stool to the middle class. Any high school graduate can join the military and receive educational benefits enough to graduate from college.

The U.S. is still a meritocracy with no entrenched classes. The Federal Reserve reports that only 2% of the people in lowest quintile of income remain there after 20 years. In other words, they all move up to the middle class. If you look further back in U.S. history, you will find that the richest families have not maintained their position. The "Four Hundred" of New York's richest in the 1890s have not remained the elite of society, but have declined and been replaced by the Trumps and his like.

Neil Irwin: . . .

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Washington, D.C.: I'm surprised at how strong the reaction to your artice was -- and it seems many people want to boil this down to a binary "freedom" versus "evil socialism" debate and that's a shame. I find it hard to believe that CEOs provide double or triple the value to the economy they did 8 or 10 years ago (which is what the compensation numbers supposedly represent). I also think these increasing disparities would be less of a big deal if we didn't depend on employers for other benefits like health insurance and retirement security. Did you have any way of including benefits and perks other than salary in your analysis?

Neil Irwin: There are data that capture benefits and other elements of compensation, but not at the local level.

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Washington, D.C.: People in -this- area -are- worse off as not even the higher end of the salary range has increased at the same rate or even close to the rate that the cost of housing in this area has increased. That is a serious problem and is going to increase the number of multiple families living in one and two bedroom apartments to afford sky-rocketing rents (let's not even discuss the waning options to buy for those of us who don't own yet).

Neil Irwin: . . .

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Alexandria, Va.: To the counterargument, the buck stops here and if you have been at the helm as your company is sinking and feel the need to cut staff and staff benefits, then you better not be living high off the hog, wallowing in perks while your workers are wondering if they will ever be able to retire, if they can afford the deductibles and co-payments that your new, cheaper-for-the-company health insurance requires (if they get health insurance) while you talk about how worker/family friendly your company is (think AT&T back in the mid-90s).

Neil Irwin: . . .

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Washington, D.C.: What is going to happen when these high salaried executives can't find enough workers for even menial jobs because we will be facing a labor shortage in the next 20 years or so? Will they finally see about paying a living wage to everyone? The biggest alleviation of worker costs/anxiety would be universal health-care, charged to each company as a function of their payroll without the current FICA limits, people who earn $1M should pay a full 7.65% in FICA like the rest of us, that should cover universal health care and take a big expense burden off the majority of companies, evening out the burden among those making money.

Neil Irwin: . . .

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Hyattsville, Md.: This is reality knocking. Education does not equate to a good job.

Neil Irwin: . . .

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Seekonk, Mass.: Hoorah, Mr. Irwin, for stating that young people heading out to college should "choose a field that they love."

Neil Irwin: Thank you kindly. . .

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and what about our children?: Am I the only person that is worried that we will have to turn our children into money-grubbing monsters just so they can make it in this country?

Neil Irwin: No, I don't think you are.

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McLean, Va.: Neil,

You say, "If, for India, that comparative advantage is in providing Americans with tech support, more power to them." This is where I get angry. I knocked myself out to earn bachelor's and master's degrees in computer science. Fortunately, I have a security clearance and some measure of job security working as a government contractor. But many others have not been so fortunate. When I recently looked at The Washington Post's Sunday Tech Jobs, the large ads were almost all government related. If India has smart people, I agree, more power to them. But you know as well as I do that their "comparative advantage" is that they work for much less compared to their U.S. counterparts. The computer science enrollment at my alma mater has continued to drop substantially, as it has across the country. Besides the dot com bust, people know that outsourcing has reduced the number of professional opportunities. This is happening in some other professions, too.

You talk about, "the entry level workers we all depend on to clean office buildings, mow lawns, provide security, and clean dishes." Note that these are all jobs that need to be performed in person. If they did not need to be performed in person, they would have been outsourced long ago, along with most manufacturing jobs. If you're going to address the economic impact of globalization, please do so in an even-handed way, across blue collar and white collar lines of work.

Neil Irwin: That's what comparative advantage means, the ability to do the same work for less money. If programmers in India were paid the same as programmers here for the same work, there would be no point in doing the work there.

Neil Irwin: . . .

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Washington, D.C.: It seems that the recent softening of the real estate market around here is one reason everyone should be concerned about the pay gap. Wither fewer and fewer people who can afford that first starter home, the market is dropping and we are all stuck - either with no homes at all or homes we can't sell (for the price we paid anyway).

Neil Irwin: Interesting point . . .

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Washington, D.C.: First of all, life is not a meritocracy and Adam Smith's idea of free market is completely bogus. We don't all start off on a level playing field and the difference between the high and low ends are astounding but even the really doing well and the upper getting bys have extraordinary gaps with regards to educational, networking, skill building opportunities. Am I saying penalize those who work hard? No, but I do think that we need to recognize that it is easier to get 13 feet off the ground if you are born 12 feet up than if you are born 3 feet up. And yes, people should get more education, I did, I was a nanny went back to college and got an accounting degree and make $55K/yr, but you know what? I can't afford a home in this area because I have student loans and because my mommy and daddy aren't giving me a down payment but I make too much to qualify for help. I don't live lavishly and have a small savings but to get to the kind of down payment I would need to buy in this area would take at least another 15 years for me (I have done the rent vs. buy figures and renting currently is cheaper). Rents too are rising though I am lucky to live in a co-op, it isn't luxurious or even all that nice but it is good enough. Even those who have pulled themselves up can barely keep their heads above water here, I don't know how people who make 35K or less a year do it.

Neil Irwin: More Adam Smith smackdown. . .

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Boston, Mass.: I don't find the arguement that immigrants are taking jobs from drop out Americans to be that plausable. Are their any cities economists can point to where immigrants are lacking and the poorly educated are doing well? With only an 8% hit to income, is it really the case that people would fight over these jobs if immigrants weren't there? I don't think a $7.56/hr job is so much more attractive than a $7/hr job for the sort of labor more of these immigrants are doing. If an individual is too lazy to finish 12 free years of basic education, what's to indicate they would have the work ethic to take these positions? I firmly believe if 11 million immigrants disappeared most of their jobs would just be automated away.

Neil Irwin: A thought about immigration . . .

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Washington, D.C.: Why would it be surprising that the gap between rich and poor would widen? There is an absolute bottom for the poor. There is no absolute top for the rich. Why would it be a good thing for income to be equal for everyone? How could you accomplish that except by theft?

Neil Irwin: . . .

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The real world: Shouldn't The Post wonder why poor people do not make the most of their opportunities in a country where anyone with ambition and a work ethic can make a nice middle class life?

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I cannot believe you print such rubbish! Poverty is a fault. A poor person is poor because of lack of ambition.

Neil Irwin: Um. OK, then.

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Washington, D.C.: I think you are too quick to dismiss the idea that inequality itself matters. People see themselves in relation to others, I mean the rich of years past probably had a lower standard of living than today's middle class in absolute terms. There have also been studies that countries with low ratios of inequality have lower incidence of disease and have increased life spans, even controlling for those without insurance in the U.S.

Neil Irwin: . . .

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Washington D.C.: Do you think that this trend could help explain the rise of real estate values in the Washington D.C. area? So that while the median incomes may not change much, those who can afford to buy houses have more purchasing power due to higher wages.

Neil Irwin: It's an interesting notion, though I tend to think there's a different set of primary causes for the DC real estate boom. But that's another chat.

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Washington, D.C.: Re: the poster who thinks business owners are taking big portions of the pie, i.e. the profits, it's worth noting that most businesses fail. The owners don't get any pie/profits at all, just the bill. Workers don't incur any of that risk.

Neil Irwin: . . .

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Neil Irwin: I can't thank you all enough for such lively comments. I suspect that this trend isn't going away (though you never know . . .), so look for more stories explaining why wage and income inequality is happening in the Washington area and beyond. If you have further thoughts on this or other economic topics, you can reach me by following the link to my story and clicking on the byline.

Thanks again.

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Washington, D.C.: I can't believe some of the comments I've been reading. I have a graduate degree and earn very little money--by my choice, in a job i enjoy. does this make me irresponsible in that i did not maximize my earning potential? what about others who have similarly attained high levels of education who choose to pursue jobs that earn them little money? what about the economic worth of them? or is the point that in our economy, they have no worth?

Neil Irwin: One more . . .

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