There are still two weeks to go until the US presidential elections, but Democrats are feeling optimistic enough to start talking about what a Joe Biden cabinet might look like. Much of the conversation has been focused on race and gender diversity. But Democrats should be paying just as much attention to economic and political diversity.

That is because the next president will need a highly heterodox team to handle a very complex problem: how to bridge the historic divide between the fortunes of US companies and workers.

It has become almost a cliché to discuss the split between Wall Street, where asset prices remain near historic highs, and the real economy of the US, where the 31 per cent drop in gross domestic product reached Depression-sized proportions in the second quarter. At the same time, painfully high aggregate unemployment figures mask even more painful unemployment levels for certain types of worker.