We’ve known for awhile that incomes have been dropping for people with only high school educations. But there was a statistic in a recent Pew Research Center study that really set me back on my heels: 22% of people aged 25 to 32 who graduated high school, but not college, live in poverty. That compares to 6% of people with college degrees.
The poverty rate overall and for the college educated has doubled since 1979, when the early wave of the Baby Boom was in the same age bracket. For those with just a high school diploma, though, the rate has more than tripled.
Meanwhile, the earnings gap between college graduates and high school graduates is the widest it’s been in 50 years.
For more on the Pew study, read my latest Reuters column. You can subscribe here to weekly updates of my education column.
