Paper · 2014 · intro level
Skills, Education, and the Rise of Earnings Inequality among the ‘Other 99 Percent’
David H. Autor
- Venue
- Science, 344(6186), 843–851
- DOI
- 10.1126/science.1251868
- Link
- publisher / source page
~1,100 citations
Source: scispace/Semantic Scholar aggregation (reported as 964 in one snapshot and 1,103 in another — treat as order-of-magnitude, not exact) · verified 2026-07-20. Counts drift daily and differ by database; treat as a dated snapshot.
In plain language
Argues that for the bottom 99%, the gap between college and non-college wages explains far more of rising inequality than anything happening among the ultra-rich.
Technical summary
Documents the growth in the education/cognitive-skill wage premium and argues continued educational upgrading is the highest-leverage policy lever for the bulk of the earnings distribution.
Key takeaways
- A corrective to public discourse's fixation on the top 1% — most of the inequality story, in this account, is about the other 99%.
Themes
Related works
- Changes in Relative Wages, 1963–1987: Supply and Demand Factors — Lawrence F. Katz & Kevin M. Murphy, 1992
- The Race between Education and Technology — Claudia Goldin & Lawrence F. Katz, 2008