Welcome, everyone. I am delighted to welcome today. Michael Strain, he is at the American Enterprise

Institute and is the Director of Economic Policy Studies. Michael wrote a book a few years ago

that just sort of, it was very short book, but encapsulated the most important

aspects of a debate we're having in this country that I don't think gets enough attention,

namely the great debate over whether the middle class has stagnated in over the last several

decades in American life.

This claim that there has been no discernible increase in wages or life circumstances

for the vast middle part of the country is key to the populist movements of both the right

and the left.

Michael, welcome.

Thank you for joining me.

Thank you for having me.

Great to be with you.

Okay.

So right at the beginning of your book, you quote from two politicians, one Democrat,

one Republican.

Here was Elizabeth Warren, actually, and Bill de Blasio, then mayor of New York, saying

across generations, Americans shared the belief that hard work would bring opportunity in a better

life. America wasn't perfect, but we invested in our kids and put in place policies to build a

strong middle class. We don't do that anymore, and the result is clear. The rich get richer,

while everyone else falls behind. The game is rigged, and the people who rigged it want it to stay

that way. Of course, this rigged language was then central to Trump's whole appeal.

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