This op-ed was originally published in Newsweek on November 20, 2019. At least to some extent in last Wednesday's Democratic debate, and more so in the earlier ones, candidates have offered soundbites touting crowd-pleasing "silver bullet" proposals to raise earnings and reduce inequality among US workers. To improve workers' skills, Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren call for free college for all. To raise wages, many call for a rapid increase in the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour as well as resurgent unionism. And Andrew Yang continues to call for "universal basic income" in response to potentially large-scale job displacement from automation.