"Economists Sometimes Strain at Gnats While Swallowing Camels"

"What happened? The answer jumps from a chart: Inequality in the structure of pay, measured as weekly earnings of the manufacturing workers, tracks the unemployment rate. It is a macroeconomic phenomenon, driven largely by the extra hours that low-paid workers are able to work in booms as well as by the short-time they suffer in slumps. It follows that the focus on supply-and-demand forces that are supposed to affect hourly wage rates–such as technology and education–is largely a waste of effort. What matters is the state of the economy and the rules governing wages."

James K. Galbraith in Salon reviews Timothy Noah's The Great Divergence: America's Growing Inequality Crisis and What We Can Do about It.