When we published the first edition of this book [2012], that "career escalator," as the writer Ronald Brownstein dubbed it, was jammed at every level. It had been for a while. Many young people, even the most highly educated, were stuck at the bottom, underemployed, or jobless, or trapped in dead-end positions out of sync with their ambitions and talents. Meanwhile, men and women in their sixties and seventies, with empty pensions and a government safety net that looked like Swiss cheese, were staying in or rejoining the workforce in record numbers. At best, this formula keeps middle-aged workers stuck in pro-motionless limbo; at worst, it squeezes them out in order to make room for more-senior talent.
