Bypassed: How Philanthropy Forgot About the White Working Class

If there’s one sure takeaway from the 2016 election, it’s that non-college-educated whites are furious at America’s cosmopolitan elite. And well they should be—the white working class has been decimated over the past few decades by economic shifts that elites of all stripes have either actively abetted or barely lifted a finger to challenge.

Foundations and major donors share the blame for this dismal failure—tending either to ignore a white working class in crisis or bankroll policies that have exacerbated that crisis.

Let’s start with globalization, far and away the biggest driver of the economic disaster that’s beset non-college-educated workers—not just by shifting manufacturing jobs overseas, but by depressing wages for all lower-skilled jobs, as economists like Josh Bevins have pointed out.