Below you'll find a list of all posts that have been tagged as “Economic inequality”
On July 1, at the start of the Independence Day weekend, we learned that income inequality in this country became even worse last year. Economic inequality produces scars that last a lifetime – and even longer. That’s one reason why President Obama said in 2013 that “increasing inequality … challenges the very essence of who we are as a people.” Well, that …
We’ve all heard about rising income inequality, and for good reason: It’s a huge problem. Just consider the fact that the wealthiest 1% of Americans accounted for roughly 21.2% of all earnings in 2012, compared to just 8.9% in 1973, according to UC Berkeley’s Center for Equitable Growth. But far less obvious is the eventuality that things will get much …
Inequality in the U.S. depends on how you look at it: Some groups of rich households, for example, have fared much differently than others. Such nuances are crucial in understanding the phenomenon — and what policy makers should do about it. Let’s start by focusing on the income of the top 1 percent of Americans, compared to that of the top 10 …
Imagine, after a deep sleep, you suffered the fate of Rip Van Winkle and woke in the spring of 2040. What might you find? Among other things, maybe a presidential candidate railing against America’s concentration of wealth. Except this time, it’s not the 1 percent that owns as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent — it’s the top hundredth of …
‘Many people view suicide as a mental health problem, but many people who die of suicide do not have a mental health problem,’ explains Kristin Holland of the CDC. Lack of accessible healthcare and economic anxiety believed to play major role in troubling trend. (Photo: Shutterstock) Coinciding with growing income inequality, widespread economic stagnation, and a continued lack of basic …
Troubling and significant statistics produced by the government indicate important facts about our political system and its priorities. Unfortunately, these statistics often get little coverage in the media. What coverage is provided usually only focuses on the current year and might include comparison with the previous year. Two such sets of government statistics cover wealth distribution and poverty. These statistics …
The American people have a deep sense of fairness. We are angry about the growing pay gap between the top 100 CEOs and the average worker — a gap that has widened from $45 to $1 in 1970, to a staggering $844 to $1 today. (See Runaway Inequality [3]) A new study shows [4] that runaway inequality also is creating a more deadly gap — …
When presidential candidate Bernie Sanders talks about income inequality, and when other candidates speak about the minimum wage and food stamps, what are they really talking about? Whether they know it or not, it’s something like this. My Working Life Then A few years ago, I wrote about my experience enmeshed in the minimum-wage economy, chronicling the collapse of good people who …
January 30, 1976 is to plutocracy in the United States what July 4, 1776 was to its democracy. The fortieth anniversary of Buckley v Valeo, the 1976 Supreme Court decision that legalized systemic political corruption and fraud, presents an opportunity to assess its continuing impact. The importance of the decision will be known to those who have successfully tracked the telltale …
Most talk of income inequality focuses on the problems of the very poor or the broader socioeconomic implications of rising inequality. What is less well-known is that income inequality makes us all less happy with our lives, even if we’re relatively well-off. We examined data from the Gallup World Poll and the World Top Incomes Database and found that the …
