The Wealth Gap After the Crash

The run-up to America’s economic crash was also a super ramp-up in the wealth of the country’s richest households. The rich got richer and richer, until everybody got hit with a bust.

So, what about now? Fat portfolios have gotten thinner, but that hits middle class families as well as the rich. Lower-wage jobs have been lost in droves. Some say radical inequality is part of what took the economy down.

What about the rebuild? Are we all in this together? Will that work, again?

This hour, On Point: Growing the pie, and sharing the pie, after the crash.

You can join the conversation. Who do you see taking the hit so far? Can we change the way the economic pie is sliced, and still grow the pie?Guests:

Joining us in our studio is Claudia Goldin, professor of economics at Harvard University and director of the National Bureau of Economic Research’s Development of the American Economy program. She is co-author, with Lawrence Katz, of "The Race between Education and Technology."

Also with us in our studio is Lawrence Katz, professor of economics at Harvard University and former chief economist at the U.S. Department of Labor.

And joining us from Princeton, N.J., is Larry Bartels, professor of politics and director of the Center for the Study of Democratic Politics at Princeton University. He is author of "Unequal Democracy: The Political Economy of the New Gilded Age."