When Ronald Reagan (1911–) won the 1980 presidential election over the president then in office, Jimmy Carter (1924–), he inherited an economy in disarray. Unemployment was high and so were prices. People were ready for a change in both the style and the substance of their leader, and Reagan gave it to them. Within a few years, the economy turned around. Inflation (the measure of the rise in prices) dropped, jobs were created, and the size of the government shrank. As Reagan told Americans during his successful 1984 reelection campaign, "America is back and standing tall" and "It's morning in America."

If you were in the right demographic group—that is, if you were young, white, and well educated—it was indeed a good decade to be an American. A new social group called "young urban professionals," or yuppies, enjoyed the Reagan-era boom a great deal. As managers...