Globalization and technological change both reduced demand for low-skilled US workers (their products are made overseas or by machines), and because the US K-12 school system is mediocre and has not responded vigorously to prepare strugglers for college, this is part of the inequality problem—yet because most of the period shows little inequality increase, globalization and immigration are not the threats to living standards that some claim, especially since their pace intensified precisely when inequality was not rising.