Prosperity tells stories about how the lives of the middle class are changing for the better. These are the people who are still being wrongly consigned by prophets of doom and gloom to the sidelines of the new high-tech economy.

These stories bring together the three trends that will be the basis for a new, middle-class prosperity: our $2 trillion investment in computer and communications technology will finally pay off in faster productivity growth, a more rapidly growing economy, and rising living standards; community colleges are helping millions of Americans move from $7-an-hour jobs to $17-an-hour jobs.

This unheralded change in U.S. education will help reverse the forces that have widened the chasm between more-educated and less-educated workers; and globalization - much maligned by pundits on the left and the right - will create new and better jobs by U.S. companies that export to developing countries and by foreign companies that build plants and offices in the United States.