Few opportunities for workers without higher education

While there is work, a vast majority of the jobs that are available to those with a high school education or less are not high quality, Yellen said, either because they are low-paying, undesirable, lack the ability for upward movement or are unsafe. Following the 2008 financial crisis, the economy added 11.6 million jobs from 2010 to 2016, but about 99% of those jobs, or 11.5 million, have gone to workers with some college education, according to academic research from Georgetown University. Only about 80,000 jobs were added for those with a high school diploma or less, yet these workers lost an estimated 5.6 million jobs during the recession. Take a major metro such as Detroit, for example: About 42% of all workers hold low-wage jobs, and the median hourly wage is $9.94 per hour, reports Molly Kinder, a research fellow at Brookings who studies the low-wage workforce. Across the U.S., 53 million people, or 44% of all workers ages 18 to 64, are considered low-wage employees, according to a recent report from Brookings. In addition to technology changing the workforce, Yellen said globalization and trade have also put the squeeze on middle-income Americans. Research shows that in some sectors and industries, globalization and trade has incentivized employers to outsource jobs or source materials more cheaply from other countries, often closing businesses and factories in the U.S.

What experts say the U.S. needs to reduce the struggle