In 2016, U.S. families headed by someone with a bachelor’s degree earned double that of those headed by someone without, and families with a postgraduate degree holder earned nearly three times as much, according to a 2019 study [PDF] by economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. The share of the nation’s income earned by families with at least one bachelor’s degree increased from 45 percent to 63 percent between 1989 and 2016.
The article also mentions how a college degree over recent years have exhibited diminishing returns, and with rising tuition we can clearly see how education is not the solution to inequality. This helped me understand my view of inequality because it is clear that a single solution, such as fixing the education gap, mitigating the harms of tax policy, addressing the labor-market changes to increase employment, will not on their own solve our issue of inequality.