Wake-up call. Facts to consider: “The United States now ranks lowest or close to lowest among advanced “affluent” nations in connection with inequality (21st out of 21), poverty (21st out of 21), life expectancy (21st out of 21), infant mortality (21st out of 21), mental health (18th out of 20), obesity (18th out of 18), public spending on social programs as a percentage of GDP (19th out of 21), maternity leave (21st out of 21), paid annual leave (20th out of 20), the “material well-being of children” (19th out of 21), and overall environmental performance (21st out of 21). Add in scores for student performance in math (17th out of 21), one of the highest school dropout rates (14th out of 16), the second-highest per capita carbon dioxide emissions (2nd out of 21), and the third-highest ecological footprint (3rd out of 20.) Also for the record: We have the worst score on the UN’s gender inequality index (21st out of 21), one of the highest rates of failing to ratify international agreements, the highest military spending as a portion of GDP (1st out of 21), and among the lowest spending on international development and humanitarian assistance as a percentage of GDP. The share of income taken by the top 1 percent of Americans has gone from 10 percent to roughly 20 percent over the last three decades. (The top 1 percent now has more income than just about the entire bottom 180 million Americans taken together. At the same time, self-evidently, the share of the rest of society – the bottom 99 percent – has dropped by a corresponding amount, roughly 10 percent of all income. DURING THE LAST SEVERAL DECADES TOP MARGINAL TAX RATES FOR THE TOP BRACKET HAVE BEEN SLASHED BY MORE THAN 50 PERCENT – FROM 91 PERCENT IN 1950 TO 70 PERCENT IN 1980 TO 35 PERCENT IN 2011, WITH MODEST AND MOSTLY TEMPORARY UPTICKS DURING THE JOHNSON, BUSH (I), CLINTON, AND RECENTLY, OBAMA ERAS. For more than forty years there has been virtually no change in the percentage of Americans in poverty. If anything there is evidence of a worsening trend – from a historic low of 11.1 percent in 1973 to 15 percent in 2011. (The percentages for African Americans and Hispanics are almost double the national average: 27.6 and 25.3 percent, respectively, in 2011.) Corporate taxes have steadily declined: from 32.1 percent of federal revenues in 1952 to 15.5 percent of such revenues in 1972 to 10.2 percent in 2000 to 7.9 percent in 2011. Corporate taxes as a share of GDP declined from a modest 6.1 percent in 1952 to 2.1 percent in 2000 to a mere 1.2 percent in 2011.” Gar Alperowitz “What Then Must We Do?”
Posted on: Thu, 06 Jun 2013 05:34:57 +0000
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