Why Growing the Economy from the Bottom Up is America's Best Bet

Time​ Magazine

6 days ago

America stands at a crossroads. We can try to cut our way out of a looming fiscal crisis—slashing services, tightening belts, and watching as the walls close in on the American Dream.
Or we can choose a different path: one of expansion, inclusion, and opportunity. I call this approach 'Raising the Third,' a national strategy to economically empower the bottom one-third of Americans across all races and backgrounds, urban and rural—turning them into stakeholders, owners, and new capitalists in the promise of this country.
For decades, America has grown by building from the middle out and the top down. But the middle is shrinking, and the top has become too narrow a base to support the weight of our shared aspirations. Meanwhile, roughly 70% of our population lives paycheck to paycheck or worse, and if you can believe it, approximately 50% of those making $100,000 a year, and even a third of those making as much as $250,000 a year do as well. And for those at the very bottom it is largely, I have found, not because they are lazy, or lack talent or drive, but because they lack access to capital, opportunity and belief.
Imagine what happens if we reverse that. If we take the 100 million Americans who are too often counted out and empower them to build businesses, own homes, increase their credit scores, invest in education, and take part in the market as producers, not just consumers. Don't shutter the U.S. Department of Education—give it a radical new mission of training America's bottom third for the AI, technology, skills-based and information-age jobs of the future. And this new economic growth could help grow GDP from the bottom up by 2% to 3% a year, chip away at the fiscal crisis, bring down the deficit, and grow America too.
After World War II, America didn't retreat, it expanded. The GI Bill sent millions to college and into the middle class. Infrastructure projects like the interstate highway system connected communities and commerce. Even the moonshot poured billions into high-tech research and development that gave rise to entire industries. We grew our way into leadership. We didn't fear the investment, we embraced it.
But that prosperity wasn't shared. Black and brown Americans were largely excluded from many of those opportunities, and white Americans in poor rural areas were left behind by globalization. As a result, we built an economy on an incomplete foundation.
If the bottom one-third of Americans were included in the economic mainstream—with a credit score of 700 or higher, with access to prime capital, and with a shot at owning something—we would unlock trillions of dollars in untapped GDP. That's not a redistribution plan. That's an inclusion plan.
At Operation HOPE, we've seen what happens when you invest in people's financial well-being. We've helped raise credit scores, start businesses, and launch careers. When people believe that the system works for them, they step up, not step back. They buy homes. They create jobs. They build wealth for the next generation. They stop surviving and start thriving. Step by step, the lights begin to come on again in struggling towns and cities clear across America.
Some policymakers argue that America's debt is too high to invest in bold economic strategies. But debt is only dangerous if it doesn't lead to growth. As I have argued before, there is a big difference between good debt and bad debt. Between dumb debt that finances depreciating anything, and smart investments that raise the roof, and have the potential for appreciation. When you invest in people—in their education, in their small businesses, in their financial literacy—you get a return. The right kind of debt is a bridge to prosperity.
And let's talk about demographics. America is getting younger at the bottom and more diverse overall. If we don't invest in the bottom third, we risk a future where too many feel left out—and opt out. That's not just bad economics. That's bad democracy. We can grow the pie, not just fight over slices. It's about making financial literacy the civil rights issue of this generation. We can make capitalism work for everyone—not by changing its fundamentals, but by expanding its reach.