it's your own fault

Yesterday, Paul Krugman's column dealt with "the skills gap" -

But the belief that America suffers from a severe “skills gap” is one of those things that everyone important knows must be true, because everyone they know says it’s true. It’s a prime example of a zombie idea — an idea that should have been killed by evidence, but refuses to die.

He spends a lot of his word count proving that assertion, and then goes on to talk about why the idea is pernicious.

Unfortunately, the skills myth — like the myth of a looming debt crisis — is having dire effects on real-world policy. Instead of focusing on the way disastrously wrongheaded fiscal policy and inadequate action by the Federal Reserve have crippled the economy and demanding action, important people piously wring their hands about the failings of American workers.

Moreover, by blaming workers for their own plight, the skills myth shifts attention away from the spectacle of soaring profits and bonuses even as employment and wages stagnate. Of course, that may be another reason corporate executives like the myth so much.

I agree - but I'd like to add one thing. We do love to blame the victim in American politics, don't we? There's gotta be some reason it's your fault you're poor - because that absolves me of the responsibility to do anything about it.