“Skill disparities, family dynamics, early childhood development and incarceration effects” are important factors in long-term income inequality left out of recent work that has garnered national headlines, write Nobel economist James Heckman and Archbridge Institute CEO Gonzalo Schwarz. They warn that incomplete assessments could lead to wrong prescriptions of how to improve economic mobility.

Heckman and Schwarz emphasize the need to eliminate “marriage penalties in the tax code and various welfare programs” and to implement “meaningful criminal justice reforms that reduce unnecessary incarceration.”