As Democratic candidates for their party's presidential nomination prepare for Tuesday's debate at Wynn Las Vegas, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institute believes there is only one issue everyone should be debating: What is happening to American jobs?
Elaine Kamarck says a discussion is needed as job growth has slowed, wages have stalled and inequality is on the rise.
"The average American, and average Las Vegan, is working probably one maybe two part-time jobs or many people around the country have simply given up looking for work," Kamarck told KNPR's State of Nevada.
She said the unemployment rate looks like it is coming down, but in reality many people have just stopped looking for jobs.
"That I think is causing a lot of anger and a lot of concern among Americans and if the presidential candidates can't address that, then I think they're just going to get nowhere," Kamarck said.
She said there are several reasons the country has a jobs problem, including globalization, the loss of union power and the corporate tax structure.
However, globalization, the loss of jobs to economies like China and India, cannot really be fixed, Kamarck argues.
But the loss of union power and the tax structure can be repaired.
"One of the reasons American companies are leaving America is the United States has the highest corporate tax rate in the world," she said.
Kamarck said companies from Walgreens to Burger King have moved corporate headquarters out of the country or have been purchased by other corporations outside the United States.
She said a lower tax rate in France, England and Canada for example is "killing jobs."
"Our middle class is getting gutted," she said.
Besides the good, middle-class jobs that come along with corporate headquarters, there are all the spin-off jobs, from the sandwich shop in the office building to the information technology support for it.
Kamarck said lowering the corporate tax rate from 39 percent to a competitive 24.9 percent will stop the practice of inversion, which is moving a company's headquarters overseas.
Another step Kamarck believes needs to be done to improve the jobs situation is to strengthen unions.
She said it should be easier to unionize and the wage act should be passed, which essentially makes unionizing a civil right. All of that, she argues, will strengthen the hand of the American worker.
"One of the things that has been happening in the last decade or so is that productivity has been rising, but American workers aren't getting their share of it, only the shareholders are," she said.
Kamarck is not confident that much will be done in the current partisan world of Washington, DC. However, to solve the big problems surrounding jobs in America, creativity and bi-partisanship is needed, she said.
"We need to, if we're really going to tackle this jobs issue, we need to be able to put together unorthodox coalitions and do a lot of things at once," she said, "The next president needs to be very creative."
Kamarck said ideas from the right, like the one to lower corporate taxes, which is often supported by Republicans, and ideas from the left, like the one to strengthen unions, which is often supported by Democrats, are both needed to improve job growth, hike wages and help end inequality.
Elaine Kamarck, senior fellow, The Brookings Institute