In lectures, books, and years of commentary, former labor secretary and current UC Berkeley Professor Robert Reich has argued passionately that widening income inequality poses one of the most severe threats to our economy and democracy.

Filmmaker Jacob Kornbluth, inspired by Reich’s book Aftershock, tackles this massive topic by effectively adapting Reich himself into documentary form. Asking how we got here and what happens if we don’t act, Kornbluth and Reich dissect countless issues—among them wage stagnation, consolidated wealth, manufacturing, financial instruments, capital markets, globalization, and election politics—with an uncanny ability to render complex principles digestible. In addition to interviews with other economists, politicians, and experts, Kornbluth documents the struggles of regular working people for whom the American dream is increasingly untenable.

In this An Inconvenient Truth for the economy, Reich presents a compelling, intellectually rigorous narrative bolstered by abundant research and graphics. In upholding rational inquiry over ideological prisms, he encourages us (as he does his students) not to share his opinion but to challenge our own assumptions. - J. N.