The rich are getting richer, all across the nation, while the vast majority of others are just getting by — or worse. That’s the reality of today’s America, and it would take either a very wealthy person, or someone who worships the very wealthy, to imagine there’s anything good about that. The wealth gap in the U.S. has been expanding for decades, but in 2012 it hit record levels, according to a team of economists analyzing Internal Revenue Service figures back to 1913. The top 1 percent earned more than 19 percent of American household income last year — the highest share since 1928. Not surprisingly, most of the tepid U.S. economic recovery has been enjoyed by those very same rich people, who have accounted for nearly all of the nation’s income gains over a three-year period. Meanwhile, the high tide isn’t floating everyone’s boat — more and more people are slipping into poverty. All of this should be appalling to nearly every American, but you won’t hear that as often as you should. That’s because the 1 percent, and those not far off of the 1 percent, too often control the message. They expend tremendous resources to convince the public that this is all for the greater good, that they know better and they will guide us through. This isn’t about class warfare or hating the rich. It is about an economic system that isn’t working the way it should be — and can be — for the vast majority of Americans. It has been slowly and carefully crafted to most benefit those who need it least, to channel more money upward, to the wealthiest among us, while leaving the masses below struggling for the scraps. And let’s be clear: There is no broader benefit. That upward movement of wealth into the hands of precious few isn’t meaningfully leading to more jobs or higher incomes. A healthy economy depends on a healthy middle class. Americans enjoy holding onto the myth that anyone can “make it,” that with some vision and hard work the lowliest citizens have a chance to rise to the highest of heights. There are still enough individual stories like that out there to feed the myth. But those remain special cases. That’s not the reality of life for most Americans, regardless of their intelligence or work ethic. That, however, is supposed to be OK; Americans are supposed to be able to thrive in middle-class life, not be dismissed as irrelevant compared to the gilded and famous. The poor are supposed to have more escape routes into that middle class and beyond. But too many of our leaders are among the gilded themselves, and voting accordingly. It is telling that the old record for the largest wealth gap existed in the year before the 1929 stock market crash and the beginnings of the Great Depression. History has already repeated itself to a degree with our Great Recession. Let’s hope it doesn’t get even worse before we fully recognize the dangers of prioritizing protections for the wealthy.
Posted on: Fri, 13 Sep 2013 10:34:56 +0000
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