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Economic Priorities Moving U.S. in Wrong Direction
MinutemanMedia
by Chuck Collins and Felice Yeskel<?xml:namespace prefix = o />
Every autumn, as the leaves change color, we get a vivid new picture of the trends that pull us apart as a country. After almost three decades of incrementally widening disparities of wealth and income, we’ve entered a new version of economic apartheid, American-style. Let’s call it Inequality 2.0.
The United States is now the third most unequal industrialized society after Russia and Mexico.
The U.S. Census reports that since 2001, the ranks of our nation’s poor have grown by 4 million, and the number of people without health insurance has swelled by 10 percent to over 45 million.
Over 50 percent of 2004 total income went to the top fifth of households, and the biggest gains to the top 5 percent and 1 percent. The average CEO now takes home a paycheck 431 times that of their average worker.
2004 saw a dramatic increase in the number of billionaires. According to “Forbes” magazine, there are now 374 of them. In the early 1980s, the average net worth of the individuals on the Forbes 400 list was $400 million. Today, the average net worth is $2.8 billion. Wal-Mart’s Walton family now has 771,287 times more than the median U.S. household.
Does inequality matter? Concentrations of wealth and power pose a danger to our democratic system. The corruption of politics by big money might explain why for the last five years the president and Congress have been more interested in repealing the federal estate tax, paid only by multi-millionaires, than in reinforcing levees along the Gulf Coast.
Now, to pay for hurricane reconstruction and the war in Iraq, Congress is considering cuts in programs that help poor people, such as Medicaid and Food Stamps. They have not yet considered fairer ways of reducing the deficit like reversing special tax breaks for the rich, such as the recent cuts in capital gains and dividend taxes.
Public policies in trade, taxes, wages and social spending can make a difference in mitigating national and global trends toward prolonged inequality. But our priorities are moving us in the wrong direction.
(click here to read the entire article)
Chuck Collins and Felice Yeskel are co-authors of the new book, “Economic Apartheid in America: A Primer on Economic Inequality and Insecurity” (The New Press).
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