Description
The United States is hardly alone in experiencing a hollowing out of the middle income job market. In fact, the percent of jobs in manufacturing and other kinds of middle income employment dropped at a faster rate in other major economies outside the United States between 1995 and 2015. It fell by 6.6 percentage points in the United States. But in France it declined by a whopping 12.1 points. The share fell 9.5 points on average among the 23 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) that have data available.
The trend makes it all the more urgent for countries to use their tax systems to avoid aggravating income inequality. Through progressive tax systems, many European countries have mitigated income inequality despite having a greater loss of middle income jobs than in the United States.
This PIIE Chart was adapted from data presented in the OECD Employment Outlook 2017 report.
