Link. "The US has gained 387,000 managers and lost almost 2m clerical jobs since 2007, as new technologies replace office workers and plunge the American middle class deeper into crisis."

Data from the Bureau of Labour Statistics divide the US workforce into 821 jobs from dishwasher to librarian. They show rapid structural shifts – on top of a cyclical unemployment rate of 7.7 per cent – that may increase income inequality.

One probable cause of rising inequality is new computing technologies that destroy some middle-class occupations even as they create jobs for highly skilled workers who can exploit them.