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n a forceful, hard-hitting policy brief, Executive Director Ann Mettler and Senior Fellow Anthony Williams look at the deep-seated changes afoot in our economy.

It is time to acknowledge an uncomfortable truth about the public status of economics as an expert discipline: it has grown to be far more powerful as a tool of political rhetoric, blame avoidance and elite strategy than for the empirical representation of economic life.

"Along with the rise of the connected consumer - a subject that has no shortage of consultants, writers and public speakers ready to tell your company what to do - shouldn't we also be thinking of the rise of empowered employee, the people in the most advantageous position today and tomorrow to fill those job shortages? "

For advanced economies, such imbalances would likely lead to more long- term and permanent joblessness. More young people without post-secondary training would fail to get a start in the job market and older workers would drop out because they don't qualify for jobs that are being created. The polarization of incomes between high- and low-skill workers could become even more pronounced, slowing the advance in national living standards, and increasing public-sector burdens and social tensions. In some advanced economies, less-skilled workers could very well grow up poorer than their parents, in real terms.