The Economic Future of American Families Income and Wealth Trends

This book analyzes the way families fared in the turbulent economy of the 1970s and 1980s, and a guess about the way today's younger families will manage the next few decades. According to Levy and Michel, each generation of workers is on its own "income track." Initially incomes are heavily influenced by the size of the age group, but later average incomes are influenced by growth in overall business productivity, changes in unemployment rates, average education levels and, for workers who do not go to college, the availability of manufacturing jobs. The authors estimated these relationships for past generations, and project income growth for baby-boom males who entered the labor force in the mid-1970s. They offer familiar remedies to spur productivity growth: raising average skill levels, and increasing personal savings. ISBN 0-87766-486-2: $31.50.