Welcome to the 71st edition of our Newsletter EdGenie's 📜 Sunday Scroll...

Every Sunday I send out actionable tips, tricks and real-world application insights from my 15 year experience coaching students to achieve As and A*s in their Economics A Levels via EdGenie.

Hey Genies, 👋

Let me clear something up about evaluation.
You’ve probably been told:

💬 “Evaluation is just the other side of the argument.”

Or...

💬 “Just add a counterbalance and move on.”

That’s not proper evaluation. ❌
It’s lazy teaching. 😤

And it’s why so many students get stuck getting low marks in their evaluations. 📉

Let me explain.

Question: 📝 “Evaluate the impact of higher corporation taxes on businesses.”

📉 Inequality Trends: Inequality, measured by metrics like the Gini coefficient, has remained flat or declined over the last two decades in Britain, the US, and Western Europe.

🤔 Perception vs Reality: Public concern about inequality persists, despite no measurable rise, possibly due to slower economic growth and contrasting income dynamics.

📊 Diverging Income Gaps: While the gap between top and middle incomes has widened, the gap between middle and bottom incomes has significantly narrowed, driven by wage growth for low earners.

💷 Impact of Minimum Wage: Increases in the minimum wage in Britain and tight labour markets in the UK and US have benefited low earners, though middle-skilled workers have suffered.

😟 Middle-Class Precarity: Middle-class professionals face challenges: the wealthy are pulling away, while lower earners are catching up, creating feelings of societal decline and insecurity.

🏦 Changing Job Landscape: High-paying jobs are now concentrated among tech and healthcare workers, with nearly half requiring advanced degrees, marginalising many traditional professions.

🔄 Shifts in Aspirations: In the 1980s, diverse occupations, including skilled trades, offered high earnings; today, opportunities are limited to a narrower set of roles.

🧭 Broader Implications: These organic changes in economies and occupations highlight the limitations of aggregate inequality statistics in capturing nuanced societal shifts.

⚠️ Political and Social Risks: Rising resentment and precarity among the middle classes contribute to political and social tensions, exacerbating feelings of inequality.

Q. Why might aggregate measures like the Gini coefficient fail to reflect public perceptions of inequality? ​​
A. Aggregate measures like the Gini coefficient provide an overview of income distribution but often conceal contrasting trends within different income groups. For example, while the overall inequality may remain flat, a widening gap between top and middle incomes can fuel perceptions of unfairness. Simultaneously, a narrowing gap between middle and bottom incomes might be overlooked, leading people to focus on the disparity they directly experience, reinforcing a sense of relative deprivation.

Q. How could the hollowing out of middle-income jobs contribute to economic and social instability?
A. The decline of middle-income jobs limits opportunities for individuals to secure stable, well-paying careers, often pushing them towards low-income roles. This increases economic precarity and weakens the traditional backbone of the economy—the middle class. The dual pressure of declining upward mobility and increasing downward competition fosters resentment towards both the wealthy, who appear increasingly out of reach, and lower-income workers, perceived as economic competitors, contributing to societal divisions and political unrest.

Q.To what extent can rising minimum wages reduce income inequality?
A. Minimum wage increases can effectively narrow the income gap between low and middle earners by boosting the earnings of the lowest-paid workers. However, their impact on overall inequality is limited as they do not address the income disparity between middle and high earners, which has been widening. Additionally, while beneficial for many, higher minimum wages may strain small businesses and lead to unintended consequences, such as reduced hiring or job automation, particularly for low-skilled roles.

Q. Why might slower economic growth amplify concerns about inequality?
A. In periods of slow economic growth, wage increases tend to stagnate, making income disparities more visible and harder to tolerate. When the economic pie grows slowly, individuals become more aware of unequal slices, leading to heightened perceptions of unfairness. This dynamic undermines public trust in the system, as economic stagnation fosters a zero-sum mentality where gains for one group are seen as losses for another, amplifying concerns about inequality.

If you or your child are looking to Boost your A level Economics Grades in under 30 days, I'd recommend starting with an all-in-one support network where you get 24/7 access to a SuperTutor:

→ Join EdGenie 🧞‍♂️: Transform your A-Level Economics essays and exam marks (genuinely) with our comprehensive on-demand learning platform. This carefully curated course blends engaging content with effective exam techniques, the same ones that have empowered over 1,000 of my students to achieve an A or A* over the last 13 years.