BAT TEN BR IEFI N G IMPROVING THE WORLD THROUGH ENTREPRENEURSHIP AND INNOVATION
APR 2014
Entrepreneurship and the Middle Class: CAN STARTUPS SAVE THE AMERICAN DREAM?
A Research Briefing for the Howard P. Milstein Symposium: Ideas for a New American Century Presented by The Miller Center, University of Virginia, in partnership with the Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation, University of Virginia Darden School of Business
ABOUT THE MILSTEIN SYMPOSIUM
IN BRIEF America has a middle-class jobs problem. Over the past 30 years, jobs paying middle-
class salaries—that is, occupations paying within 50 percent of median earnings—have been disappearing, at least relative to the high-wage and low-wage jobs on the pay
scale. Moreover, this trend has occurred as the median wage itself has stagnated. In the In September 2013, the University of Virginia Miller Center launched the Howard P. Milstein Symposium: Ideas for a New American Century. This five-year initiative convenes distinguished stakeholders and eminent scholars to advance innovative, non-partisan, action-oriented ideas, grounded in history, to help rebuild the American Dream. The Miller Center will organize three Milstein commissions each year.
wake of the Great Recession and after the worst decade of job growth in over 50 years, the U.S. is left with an alarming middle-class jobs gap.1
The 2013–14 season of the Milstein Symposium seeks to address this critical employment challenge by fostering thoughtful conversation and productive dialogue about how to create and sustain the jobs of the future. The next commission in this series,
which convenes 12–13 May, will focus on whether and how entrepreneurs can restart the engine of middle-class job creation.
This Batten Briefing offers an overview of the issues relevant for this discussion, beginning with a picture of middle-class employment, the effects of recession and recovery on that sector, and a summary of the causes for the “hollowing-out” of middle-class
lead scholars
Sean D. Carr Executive Director, Batten Institute, Assistant Professor of Business Administration carrs@darden.virginia.edu
Michael J. Lenox Samuel L. Slover Research Professor of Business, Academic Director and Associate Dean, Batten Institute, lenoxm@darden.virginia.edu
SPECIAL ISSUE
jobs. The second part of the Briefing explores the job-creating potential for entrepreneurship, including a profile of today’s entrepreneurs, and concludes with potential policy levers that may motivate entrepreneurial activities to generate middle-class opportunities. 1
Krueger, Alan B. “Reversing the Middle-Class Jobs Deficit.” Remarks delivered at the Center on Global Economic
Governance at Columbia University, New York, New York, April 26, 2012.