Inequality

We Have The Means To Fund Reparations. Where Is The Political Will?

June 5, 2019 By Dedrick Asante-Muhammad and Chuck Collins, Truthout.org Create! Inequality, New Economy, Racism, Reparations

Between 1983 and 2016, the median net worth for Black Americans actually went down by 50 percent. Paired with a growing Latinx population that also lags far behind whites in household wealth, the U.S.’s overall median wealth trended downward over those decades, even as median white wealth increased. These trends go hand-in-hand with the rigging of the overall economy. Over the last 30 years, the wealthiest 20 percent of households have captured almost 97.4 percent of all increases in wealth, leaving only scraps for the rest.

How Inequality Makes US Poorer

May 29, 2019 Staff, Stumblingandmumbling.typepad.com Educate! Inequality, New Economy, Poverty

My chart shows the point. It shows the 20-year annualized rate of growth in GDP per worker-hour. It’s clear that this was much stronger during the relatively egalitarian period from 1945 to the mid-70s than it was before or since, when inequality was higher. This might, of course, be coincidence: maybe WWII caused both a backlog of investment and innovation which allowed a subsequent growth spurt and a desire for greater equality. Or it might not. This is not the only evidence for the possibility that inequality is bad for growth.

When Will The Contented Classes Rise Up In Rebellion?

May 10, 2019 By Ralph Nader, Commondreams.org Resist! Class Struggle, Inequality, Rebellion

When will the people who recognize just how bad things have become for the most vulnerable—and the nation at large—unfurl the flag of rebellion against the plutocrats and the autocrats? For all the rhetoric and all the charities regarding America’s children, the U.S. stands at the very bottom of western nations and some other countries as well, in terms of youth well-being. The U.S.’s exceptionalism is clearest in its cruelty to children. The U.S. has the highest infant mortality rate of comparable OECD countries. Not only that, but 2.5 million American children are homeless and 16.2 million children “lack the means to get enough nutritious food on a regular basis.”

Why The ‘One Percent’ In The US Is Worried

May 7, 2019 David A Love, Aljazeera.com Educate! Class Struggle, Inequality, Ruling Class

Inequality in the United States has reached such levels lately that even members of the "one percent" have started worrying. Ray Dalio, founder of Bridgewater Associates hedge fund who is ranked 57th wealthiest person in the world by Forbes magazine, quipped in a recent interview that capitalism is denying "equal opportunity for the American dream". He said that he was "a byproduct of capitalism when it also gave equal opportunity", adding "I was very lucky to live the American dream by having the proper care and the proper public school education … A number of things have changed."

The Untold Story of Trump’s ‘Booming’ Economy

May 5, 2019 By Leo Gerard, Independent Media Institute Educate! Inequality, Jobs and Wages, Wealth Divide

Americans are not happy, and for good reason: They continue to suffer financial stress caused by decades of flat income. And every time they make the slightest peep of complaint about a system rigged against them, the rich and powerful tell them to shut up because it is all their fault. One percenters instruct them to work harder, pull themselves up by their bootstraps and stop bellyaching. Just get a second college degree, a second skill, a second job. Just send the spouse to work, downsize, take a staycation instead of a real vacation. Or don’t take one at all, just work harder and longer and better. The barrage of blaming has resulted in workers believing they deserve censure. And that’s a big part of the reason they’re unhappy.

Millions Of Workers Are Paid Less Than The ‘Average’ Minimum Wage

May 5, 2019 By Ben Zipperer and David Cooper, Economic Policy Institute Educate! Inequality, Living Wage, Minimum Wage

After 10 years of inaction at the federal level, so much of the policy work being done to boost wages for low-wage workers is happening at the state and local level. Yet, it is important to recognize that even with state and local governments taking action in many places, there are still millions of workers being paid significantly lower wages than the “average” minimum wage as calculated in the Upshot piece. In fact, raising the federal minimum wage to $11.80 would directly lift wages for 18.6 million workers, or 12.8 percent of the wage-earning workforce. Moreover, calculating the average effective minimum wage is very sensitive to how one defines the workforce affected by the policy. One would arrive at a much lower average minimum wage if considering the broader low-wage workforce for whom minimum wage policy is relevant.

How The 1 Percent Is Pulling America’s Cities And Regions Apart

April 16, 2019 Richard Florida, Citylab.com Educate! Geography, Inequality

The two gravest challenges facing America today, economic inequality and geographic divides, are increasingly intertwined. Economic inequality has surged with nearly all the growth being captured by the 1 percent, and the economic fortunes of coastal superstar cities and the rest of the nation have dramatically diverged. These two trends are fundamental to a new study by Robert Manduca, a PhD candidate in Sociology and Social Policy at Harvard University. The study uses census microdata culled from 1980 to 2013, and finds that America’s growing regional divide is largely a product of national economic inequality, in particular the outsized economic gains that have been captured by the 1 percent.

End Taxes That Favor The Rich; Confront Inequality And Implement An Ecosocialist Green New Deal

April 15, 2019 Howie Hawkins, Popular Resistance Create! Corporate tax, Inequality, Taxes

One area where the two parties of the millionaires and billionaires put in place policies that favor the rich are tax laws. Tax policy has favored the wealthy under both parties, but the Trump-administration has brought this tax corruption to new levels. We need to transform tax policy to build the working class base of the economy, shrink the wealth divide, and confront the climate crisis. An honest analysis of the tax code calls out in stark detail the extreme injustice of the economy in the United States. The tax system favors the wealthy as low- and middle-income people are hit the hardest while big business and high-income people are subsidized.

Why Can’t We Close The Racial Wealth Gap?

April 9, 2019 Brentin Mock, Citylab.com Strategize! Inequality, New Economy, wealth inequality

If the college cheating scandal has reinforced anything, it’s that one of the primary advantages of being wealthy is that the wealthy can buy more advantages. This helps explain why African Americans, who’ve historically been denied wealth, lag in almost every category of society behind whites, who have long benefited from capital extracted from black labor and culture. It also helps explain why—despite a “booming” U.S. economy that is nearing full employment—a giganticracial wealth gap remains. On average, white households have nearly 6.5 times the wealth of black households.

A Cure For Excessive Wealth Disorder

April 4, 2019 By Chuck Collins, Otherwords.org Create! Inequality, Ruling Class

The U.S. is suffering from excessive wealth disorder. This isn’t your parents’ inequality influenza, but a more virulent strain of extreme disparities of income, wealth, and opportunity. Just 400 billionaires have as much wealth as nearly two-thirds of American households combined. And just three individuals — Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates — have as much wealth as half of all U.S. households put together. Since the economic meltdown of 2008, the lion’s share of income and wealth growth hasn’t gone just to the top 1 percent — it’s gone to the richest one-tenth of 1 percent.

There’s Plenty Of Wealth To Go Around — It Just Doesn’t

March 28, 2019 By Bob Lord, Otherwords.org Educate! Inequality, Ruling Class

Get ready to hear a lot about baking this campaign season. When it comes to how wealth is distributed in this country, “pie” is a favorite pundit metaphor. Some politicians want to “re-divide the pie,” so everyone’s slice is more equal in size. But that’s “socialism,” some pundits scold. Better to trust our billionaires and millionaires to “grow the pie” so big that every American has a generous slice. New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman indulged a bit of this recently. Michael Bloomberg, Friedman explained, is a grow-the-pie guy. Bernie Sanders, he warned, is a re-divide-the-pie guy.

Fixing Inequality: More Opportunity Is Not The Answer

March 14, 2019 By Claude Fischer, Madeinamericathebook.wordpress.com Strategize! Inequality, New Economy

Public discussions of reducing inequality have largely focused on equalizing the opportunities for people to move up, on ideas such as universal pre-K, school reform, reducing college debt, fighting discrimination, affirmative action, training programs, opportunity zones, and career mentoring. The hope is that someday the daughter of a Kentucky miner will have as much of a chance to live well as the son of a Wall Street broker, their fates determined not by circumstances, but only by ability and character.

Wealth Inequality Across Class and Race

March 6, 2019 By Matt Bruenig, Peoplespolicyproject.org Educate! Inequality, Race, wealth inequality

Discussions of wealth inequality are oftentimes muddled by insufficient statistics. You get some stray comparisons of medians or comparisons of the wealthiest 400 families to the least wealthy half of the country. These incomplete pictures lead to mind-numbing debates about class and race that go nowhere. Below I try to clear up these debates with a more complete picture of race, class, and wealth in America.

What States Can Do to Reduce Poverty And Inequality Through Tax Policy

March 4, 2019 By Sarah Anderson and Chuck Collins, Inequality.org Strategize! Inequality, New Economy, Policy, Poverty, Taxes

States have an opportunity to act to close the loopholes that hide and protect the wealth of the top 1%, remedy the impact of the new federal tax law that lowers taxes on the wealthy, and make critical investments in infrastructure, energy systems, and programs that create broader opportunity and shared prosperity. Concentrations of wealth are distorting our economy and undermining our democracy and civic health. State administrations and state legislatures can act to close the loopholes, put a brake on economic inequality and concentrations of wealth, and generate significant revenue.

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