he was an infidel, an agent of the french government, it sounds a little reminiscent. the things that were said about abraham lincoln, about fdr, that he wanted to be a dictator, so it does come with the territory, but in donald trump's case, at least in the modern political era post-world war ii, i have never seen anything like it. announcer: on sunday at noon, our live to our conversation with author and faith and freedom coalition founder ralph reed, whose most recent book is "forgotten country." join in with your phone calls, texts and tweets. watch "in-depth" on sunday at noon on c-span2. the: jim tankersley covers economy for "the new york times," and is the author of "the riches of this land."

good morning. guest: thank you for having me. host: how do you define the middle class? guest: there are so many ways you can define the middle class. i like to define it as an aspirational set of economic security items that americans want to have to make their lives feel safe and secure. so i do find somebody who is middle-class as somebody who is able to buy their own home, a car, send their kids to school and save for retirement. these are basic comforts that help everyone feel more stable, even through difficult economic times. if you have a job that gives you enough income and you can build enough wealth to get those things, then i think in america we would call you middle-class. the people striving for that security bucket of goods are aspirational middle-class.

far back in our history does the use of the term middle-class go to refer to economic success? guest: we think of the middle class as quintessentially american, but it is relatively new term in terms of popular news and literature. there is references to a dating back to the 1800s, but it referred to very different things. we didn't really start seeing the explosion of both the middle-class and the use of the term middle-class until about the middle of the 20th century. the run up to and aftermath of world war ii. host: you are writing a book about a finding the middle-class , that it is the most important question in public life today. it was amid the rise of populism in the early 2010's that swept donald trump into the presidency , especially now that the country has fallen into the

swiftest recession in the country's history. when that laid bare the fragility of workers lives and dreams lost in the 21st century. where did the good jobs for american middle-class go? where will we find new ones? does your book explore where that is? guest: it does. comprehensive argument for what happen to good jobs and why we shouldn't expect particular jobs to return. it is a variety of factors including international trade, technological advancement, a shifting composition of an economy away from manufacturing. a crucial part of the american economic equation over time has not happened. in the past when good jobs have gone away, once sprung up to replace them. that was true when we transitioned from an agricultural economy to a factory-based one.

those jobs were better. we have not seen that this time around. millions of workers have been marooned in jobs that pay less and frankly do not make as good a use of those skills as the jobs they lost. i laid out a comprehensive -- makeup-- line i am goings not like to one particular industry. i am going to people. the argument in the book is that the american middle-class surges when we have a particular formula which is we empower people who have been disempowered in the economy to pursue their talents and make the best use of them. in this case that means investing in women, people of color, women of all races, metabolic -- -- fromng high skilled

around the world and give them access to capital. they will create businesses, economic growth, job growth, income growth, and ultimately the good paying jobs of the future. host: jim tankersly, his new book is, "the riches of this land: the untold story of america's middle-class." if you earned below 50,000 a year -- below $15,000 a year, that number is (202) 748-8000. if you run between $50,000 and $100,000 a year, (202) 748-8001. all others, over $100,000 a year, (202) 748-8002. you can also send a text at (202) 748-8003. on those jobs, there is a line and bruce springsteen's song about the textile mill across the railroad track, those jobs ain't coming back. do you think sometimes people have unreal expectations of the

return of industries, or the types of jobs that used to be part of the success of the middle-class? guest: i think people have been sold some unfortunate oversimplified visions of how a nostalgic economy can be brought back. i want to be clear i do think we could create hundreds of thousands, if not millions more manufacturing jobs now, but i do not think it will be the jobs we lost. if we look at the way the economy has evolved, those jobs are now requiring different skills. there is much more automation in american factories. the latest economic data, we are seeing factory production searching, but hiring is not. -- reduction surging, hiring is not. people have rising hopes that the good jobs they lost could someday be returned. it is seductive to think if we

just change trade policy we could just get those jobs back. when you talk to businesses, when you talk to economists, it is much more complicated. greathink there will be middle-class jobs in america, and we could have a surge of them. i do not think it is likely those will look like the jobs we lost. the politicians who promised we could bring back those old jobs -- i have been covering politicians my entire career -- i think they are misleading workers and voters. host: you touched on this a moment ago. i want to read this part of your -- you write, "i have learned in my reporting that the united states economy thrived after world war ii in large part because america made it easier for people who had previously been shut out of opportunity, women, minorities, immigrants to climb the economic ladder. to make better use of their

talents and potential. they were the unsung engine of what most americans now think as a time when the economy worked best." are we not doing that as well as we did and that post-world war ii period? guest: we are not. in some ways it is the same. similar impediments exists. we did not finish the work of the civil rights era. black americans still face actual quantifiable discrimination in basically every step of the way in their lives, from education up through the job market. that is true of other americans of color as well. it is also truly do not support women in the way we should -- it is also true who we do not support women. they have become our most skilled workers, as measured by education. have policies in place

that adequately help working mothers balance the demands society has on them for work and childcare. between the persistence of discrimination, new types of discrimination, and the overall shifts in the economy, we are not doing enough to open those pathways. meansod news is that we've got a lot of potential sitting here. if we could truly have equality of opportunity in america, the ability for every talented worker to do what she or he is best at, there is a productivity boom waiting to happen and it would not be that difficult to tap. host: limits the themes of law and order, and response to the pandemic, do you think the economic strength of the middle-class, that message as a campaign issue is getting buried? guest: on one hand, yeah.

we have a lot of important issues. i cover economics, so i want the economic story leading the newspapers. i also think there are crucially important health questions and questions about other things. in what -- in the other sense, it is the same question. everything is wrapped up and indistinguishable. it is impossible to distinguish between issues of race and economics in america because so much of your economic outcomes depend on your race from birth to death. we are having a big struggle over a bunch of those things in the midst of a health crisis. i do agree we are not hearing as much about what candidates would do for middle-class taxes. areink both candidates

attempting to speak every day to the americans they consider to be middle-class who might be swing voters and make the case for why their policies would -- theirt lead policies would lead to a better way of life. host: first up is ron from west chesterfield, new hampshire, below $50,000. caller: good morning. below mentioned, i make $50,000. i have for a very long time. i find you do not have to be black to be able to miss out on a lot of opportunities. out you don't really need an awesome job to be able to accomplish your american dream. what has messed my family and i up, despite the fact i work a lot and still make up for whatever money i can, i find the big corporations and wall street is what have really screwed us up into thousand eight. 2008. what took away --

that's what took away my dream, i probably won't end up owning a home. that was from the greed of wall street and big business. they did that to me. also, taxes on the middle class. the large corporations and the wealthy have all these tax breaks, and the poor can't afford taxes. onerous on paying taxes is the middle-class. it is no wonder we don't have much of a middle-class anymore. if the government and wall street would stay out of my way, i might could actually accomplish my american dream. not from a lack of working, i will tell you that. you areou have money or born into money, it is basically like you are not allowed to get beyond a certain point before somebody screws you over.

host: what kind of work do you do? guest: -- caller: i own my own cleaning company, that is not doing well. i'm doing contracts through my cleaning company, but also i am currently working part-time for walmart. host: we will hear from jim tankersly. guest: first, my heart goes out to ron. i want you to know you're not alone in the kind of struggles you are describing. millions of americans saw their dreams wiped out in the 2008 crisis. i have a big part of the book on how that affected people's economic standing, their ability to reach their dream and their optimism there -- also, the main character in the --k is a man named a green ed green who has had to take multiple jobs to put together the minute -- the middle-class life that was formally one job.

the problem is not that americans don't work hard enough. american workhours have gone up. that more than explore -- i want to get back to the very first thing ron said, which i think is important and kind of quietly lost. workers without college degrees, workers in the working-class have this solidarity now that crosses racial lines. the economy is treating them poorly no matter what race they are. it is not making full use of their talents. underpinning the book as a research project from economists

from stanford. one of them told me last year that the quiet change in the american economy is that over the last couple of decades, white men without college degrees have started to experience the kinds of difficulties, economically, to get ahead that in the past women and minorities have experience. part of the argument of the book is that all of those workers are in this together. out are all being -- losing at the feet of guys like me, white men with college degrees. those are the folks the economy has worked really wherefore -- really well for the past few decades. host: larry is next. go ahead. tankersley, mr. america is based on six classifications of americans.

it is all based on education, income and lifestyle. maze -- a toughwer class have time going through the maze. lower middle class and upper middle class find their way through the maze. lower upper class can fly over the top of the maze. the upper upper class has always been over the maze. had namesupper class and traditions like the rockefellers while the upper lower class are like the apple and the google. they are not upper upper class yet. they're coming too, but they don't have that name from tradition. i don't know if you agree with me or not. i like that metaphor.

tend to segment groups exactly like that in my mind, but one of the things about class in america is that it is rigorously defined. i have my own definitions i was talking about in terms of consumption and security. maze involved is an evocative way to think about this. host: you cover economics for the new york times, how long have you been thinking about this idea of where the middle classes and to write this book? have: the long answer is i been thinking about it since i was a kid. i grew up in a timber town in oregon, what was then a timber town. in the 1980's and 1990's, i watched an economic ladder snap out from under a bunch of kids i would to school with, and their families who worked in or around

the timber industry as it cratered. i guess i was more into economics than a lot of more socially adjusted kids might have been in high school. thendered a lot, when is economy going to work again for these guys who i liked and who worked hard and good but their hands and suddenly didn't have as much opportunity as their dads had? my entire career, i have been chasing that question and it has gotten bigger and bigger. whether as a political reporter asohio, or now in washington an economics reporter come i always come back to the question of when will the economy start working again. not just for the kids i would to high school with, but all of the hard-working americans no matter their race, gender or ethnicity who have, just like ron was saying, worked really hard not getting back out what they put in. host: our line for those over

$100,000, joe, oklahoma city. caller: some of the first 'sholars -- first caller stole my thunder. i really don't make over 100,000 dollars, but what struck me as i do not think they are going to be voices calling in for the billionaire class. i think americans need to realize that we have 650 billionaires in america. that 650 billionaires own 90% of everything around us. the media, the government. i think money in politics is one of the reasons -- you can't get policy when the buy thetrarich politicians to make the policy. you've got pelosi who talks about investing in people below

that superrich category, but her policies never really quite match up with that. mitch who is have up there to stop anything. plan, look at trump's tax $1.5's tax plan gave went to -- 83% of it the most ultrarich people in the country. here's another -- [indiscernible] going to exponentially grow where you have billions worldwide, workers being replaced. plan did away with depreciation for capital expenditure. brand-newey get a

machine, they don't have to take that out over 20 years of depreciation to get the right off on their taxes, they can expense it year one. trump's tax plan is going to crush automation jobs away from people. we have too much money in , now with netdia neutrality being killed, i want , ar guest to talk about kiva grassroots lending organization. host: ok, you have put a couple of issues out there. jim tankersly, your thoughts? guest: i covered the trump tax cuts. statistics.f those the 83% is only true if you are looking at the distributional score of the final year of the task at. -- tax cut.

the accelerated depreciation he is talking about, that actually is an expiring policy. republicans want to make it permanent. a very salient point about money in politics, which is something that people worry about and have tried to fix for longtime. most on the news of the themes of what i write about, the experience of automation. it is true, there are going to be millions of jobs automated. we are seeing it right now. it is potentially unsafe to have human workers back on the job, companies are trying to find ways to get machines to do that work. on the one hand, that is bad. on the other hand, it is going to make the cut -- it goes back to this idea of can we find better things for those workers to?

american policy over the past few decades has not invested in this idea that there is a norma's potential in human labor still. an optimist in human labor. i think there has been this disconnect. renewedrately need questions on how do be good people, how do we empower people to start the companies that create the jobs that will actually make use of the skills for workers that are right now being lost. question from southeast pennsylvania, what is the difference between middle-class and working-class? is the difference economic or cultural? distinction a without a difference. just like middle-class, it is different words people use. i tend to think that

working-class signifies what i mean as the aspirational middle-class. people who are working hard who want to have that middle-class security i can't afford their own home, maybe can't save for retirement, or get that job that allows them to send their kids to college, or maybe they don't have health care but they are working hard. space ofuch broader work then the working middle class. other people have definitions come i don't think any of them are right or wrong. host: also from pennsylvania, philadelphia. richard is next. caller: good morning. my concern is that, as somebody who will soon be retired, i am males movingack through this economy. you made reference earlier about the difficulty. males, at young black

needing to do these skill changes

rep. brady: it is plain to see -- guest: it is plain to see the

bias in the economy. unjust that they continue to be consigned to schools that are not as good and are that they continue to have difficulties making it through allege and continue to have difficulty landing jobs and being promoted once they do. all these things are true, so in the book what i say is -- look, there are no easy answers here. this is not a five-point plan. the best thing we can do right now is to eradicate systemic racism and sexism. but that is not something you can do overnight. i'm not going to pretend that everybody will change their minds and stop discriminating. like you are saying, these biases are often unconscious. companies hire people the way they always have, that brings people in through a certain pipeline.

but sometimes they are overt, the discrimination, and in particular the issues of educational equality and investment have been a struggle for decades. battles been a policy and there have been times when policymakers are more dedicated to solving them. so i would like to be able to tell you, if we could follow this quik-trip we could solve the problems of education disparities and mass incarceration, housing disparities -- i mean, even if you are able to make your way through it, the previous caller said the maze as a black man in america right now, you are still likely to end up in a house in a black neighborhood that is undervalued compared to a house in a white neighborhood for no reason other than discrimination. this is all based on economic research. we have to fix those things. those are policy failures. it will take a rededication to

the idea that we