for high school dropouts, it is 14%. part of the reason we're in this crisis is that we have slacked off and allowed our education system to get rigid and sclerotic. but part of it is that other countries have focused intensely on education in recent decades. the result? we have a population of adults now that face real competition in a global economy. as bill gross, the head of the world's largest bond firm, pimco, puts it, american workers are too expensive and too poorly educated to compete globally. there are two variables here. our education level, which is too low, and our wages, which are too high. either we raise education or markets will lower our wages. it's already happening. our decline in education achievements over the last 20 years has been accompanied by a stagnation in wages for the median american worker.