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No-one is suggesting that everyone should graduate college. What Brooks is saying is that those who don't have a university degree have dramatically worse lives than they used to. There is a growing working-poor underclass, and Brooks correctly states that their plight is a more important problem than that of the 1%.

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I think they are two sides to the same coin. You can't tackle red inequality without looking at blue inequality. As someone else put it, purple inequality. What happens when a CEO screws up? Blue inequality they get some sort of parachute and bonus regardless of the company tanking, and red inequality people are laid off, fired, don't get raises, or sometimes receive pay cuts.

What Brooks is saying is that those who don't have a university degree have dramatically worse lives than they used to.

No he didn't. He said that the gap between those with and without a university degree is rising. It's not the same thing.

It is almost certainly wrong to claim that the non-college educate are worse off ("dramatically" or not) than some historical period.

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