The Liberal Order Can’t Heal Itself

Over Thanksgiving week the talk of the economically focused internet was a viral essay claiming, absurdly, that the real poverty line in America for a family of four is $140,000 a year.

If you were inclined to generosity, you would say that the essay resonated because it emphasized real problems, from the rising cost of child care and housing to the distorting effects of welfare benefit cliffs as people climb up from poverty. But its basic claim was still completely wrong, as are most apocalyptic accounts of the American economic situation. Beware of anyone, left or right, trying to persuade you that middle-class Americans have all plunged into poverty or that young Americans have no prospects anymore.

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