Increasing Income Disparity in the US
At Slate, Timothy Noah writes about what economist Paul Krugman calls “The Great Divergence” – the increasing disparity in US incomes:
It’s generally understood that we live in a time of growing income inequality, but “the ordinary person is not really aware of how big it is,” Krugman told me. During the late 1980s and the late 1990s, the United States experienced two unprecedentedly long periods of sustained economic growth—the “seven fat years” and the ” long boom.” Yet from 1980 to 2005, more than 80 percent of total increase in Americans’ income went to the top 1 percent. Economic growth was more sluggish in the aughts, but the decade saw productivity increase by about 20 percent. Yet virtually none of the increase translated into wage growth at middle and lower incomes, an outcome that left many economists scratching their heads.
Remember “trickle down” economics? This is “pouring up.”
Why don’t Americans pay more attention to growing income disparity? One reason may be our enduring belief in social mobility. Economic inequality is less troubling if you live in a country where any child, no matter how humble his or her origins, can grow up to be president.
We’re told that all we have to do is pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and anyone can succeed. Unfortunately, the game is increasingly rigged against those who weren’t smart enough to pick wealthy parents.
This is disturbing:
All my life I’ve heard Latin America described as a failed society (or collection of failed societies) because of its grotesque maldistribution of wealth. Peasants in rags beg for food outside the high walls of opulent villas, and so on. But according to the Central Intelligence Agency (whose patriotism I hesitate to question), income distribution in the United States is more unequal than in Guyana, Nicaragua, and Venezuela, and roughly on par with Uruguay, Argentina, and Ecuador. Income inequality is actually declining in Latin America even as it continues to increase in the United States. Economically speaking, the richest nation on earth is starting to resemble a banana republic.
The whole article is worth reading. It’s part 2 of an ongoing series – one that seems to be worth following.
Tags: income inequality
120,000,000 workers
own 7% Total Financial Wealth
Shameful
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120,00,000 workers
no real pay raise since 1979
What is wrong with our people?
120,00,000 should vote fo Democrats in Washington
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The conservatives have very successfully held their coalition together with national security fears and a number of social issues. We all have our causes, and I won’t make judgments about those issues here, but I will say that none of the social issues will bring down our standard of living and, perhaps, the entire country, like economic issues will, and already have. Until Americans focus on what really, really matters, the other side is going to get away with these destructive policies.
I’m a Democrat, but I can’t honestly let that stop me from saying that some Democrats have gone along with some of this economic nonsense, including President Clinton, who signed the laws over a number of trade deals and the law repealing much of the banking regulation, the results of which we are experiencing in an ever so painful way. While I’m a Democrat, I’m not afraid to call out Democrats who have contributed to the income disparity. We already knew most Republicans were guilty, except for a few moderate to liberal Republicans from times past, a species that needs to be put on the “endangered list,” lest they become extinct.
The rich and the free-marketers preach self interest, and they abide by their own sermons. The rest of Americans need to learn that lesson, then we’ll see “change we can believe in.”
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I did this article a couple of years ago, but it is still pertinent:
http://pontificating-randy.blogspot.com/2009/09/teddy-roosevelt-would-be-democrat.html
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Historically, nations that develop such extreme economic disparities collapse.
After 30+ years of anti-poor rhetoric from the political establishment/media, Americans are unprepared to discuss the role our chosen social policies have played in increasing and deepening hopeless, inescapable poverty in the US. That’s unfortunate. Workfare, predictably, is a growing super-cheap temp help replacement workforce, and has been an effective tool for suppressing wages, blocking efforts to unionize and eliminating workers’ rights and protections. Meanwhile, we really have created a Third World right here in the US; the infant mortality rate among our poor now surpasses that of most Third World countries, and the life expectancy of our poor has fallen below that of most Third World countries — and America doesn’t care. We won’t address any of this because we have been taught that poverty, rather than being an economic/political consequence, is the result of “bad behavior” and “bad choices.” Those who become poor have been taught to be too ashamed to talk about it, and the rest have been taught to, put simply, blame victim. Instead, here we are, covering the costs of massive, annual corporate tax relief (i.e., we pay their bills) so that corporations can use their savings to move our jobs to foreign countries.
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Something is really not right in here. I know it’s obvious, but I just can’t help thinking what’s the real reason!
Merchant Cash Advance
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