Justice
Is Innovation to Blame for Inequality?
The evidence suggests innovation does contribute to the wealth of the one percent—but it also increases social mobility.
Innovation is the underlying driver of economic growth and rising living standards. But recently, high-tech startups and tech workers have been blamed for rising inequality and for pricing residents out of housing in leading tech hubs such as San Francisco. Last year’s protests over Google Buses shuttling employees from the city to its Silicon Valley campus while the rest of San Francisco’s public transportation system was underfunded is perhaps the perfect case in point. At the same time, economists have found that as inequality has risen over the past couple of decades, the rate of innovation has fallen, especially since the economic crisis.
Is innovation really to blame for rising inequality?