Krugman Essay Summary

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Summary:Paul Krugman's “Degrees and Dollars” In his article “Degrees and Dollars” Paul Krugman states that education is not key to economic success. Technology keeps growing everyday and Paul shows that this technology is harming highly educated jobs. He also is showing that middle class jobs are becoming less popular while low wage jobs seem to be increasing. Krugman will also explain his thoughts on how to fix the economy as a whole through bring the society together as a whole. In his first section Paul says that “It is universally acknowledged that education is the key to economic success.” He is actually just stating that to make a generalization of most of the worlds thoughts on education and job success, because right after he makes that statement he goes on to say that “what everyone knows is wrong.” Krugman says that the growing technology and use of software is extremely cheaper than the “old fashioned” way of doing things. Such as using armies of lawyers and paralegals to do legal research. Basically, technology is reducing demand for highly educated workers. Another example he uses are engineers. He says technology is eliminating the need for them because you can make chips much simpler with a computer than a human worker. So yes, it seems that the more technology we are creating the less highly educated workers we will need. Section 2 is where he goes on to talk about the working classes and how since 1990 the U.S job market is “hollowing” out. The high and low paying jobs are increasing while the middle wage jobs are all disappearing. The reason for the job market turning this way is the fact that technology hurts those who do physical work and helps those who work with their mind. People who work with information will always see job opportunities as long as the technology keeps growing. This section clearly shows that technology
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