My reporting taught me that the United States economy enjoyed a golden era of shared prosperity in large part because, during the war effort and the civil-rights era, America made it easier for people who had been previously shut out of economic opportunity—women, minorities, immigrants—to enter the workforce and climb the economic ladder, to make better use of their talents and potential. They would protect against job losses in bad economic times and promote fair pay in good ones, and they would strive to keep the economy humming with strong growth and low unemployment—the formula that has produced sustained income gains that raise pay for everyone and pull people into the middle class.