INCOME INEQUALITY: AMERICA'S 21ST CENTURY MONSTER

This video was published December 28, 2011. The article below was originally posted here at the CSEA Voice Reporter on May 6, 2011.

Rochester, N.Y.-- It might have taken a near-historic recession for many Americans to notice our country's rapidly rising levels of income inequality, but the gap between rich and poor has finally gone mainstream, with bloggers, economists and policymakers of all stripes spouting theories on why we should or shouldn't care.

And while the debate continues over cause and consequence, that central claim has proven unshakable: the void between the wealth of America's richest and poorest is widening, and few signs show any indication of it slowing anytime soon.

ThinkProgress reports that income inequality in the United States equals that of Uganda, and is worse than in countries like Pakistan, Ethiopia and the Ivory Coast.

Statistics from the CIA Factbook show that income inequality is also higher in the United States today than at any other time since the Great Depression.

Meanwhile, the American Human Development Index recently reported that, partially due to income inequality and the decline of unionization in America, there is now a 30-year gap in life expectancy between the deep South and New England.

"Economists are not sure how to fully explain the growing inequality in America," according to Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. In an article published in Vanity Fair, he said, "One big part of the reason we have so much inequality is that the top 1 percent want it that way."

While it's unclear whether Stiglitz is correct about the intentions of the super-wealthy, what's certain is that the rich have emerged from the rubble of the last 30 years as indisputable winners.

Since 1980, middle-class wages have largely stagnated and lower-class wages have declined, while the upper echelons of American society have seen a windfall.

A study by University of California, Berkeley professor Emmanuel Saez found that, as of 2007, the top decile of American earners pulled in 49.7 percent of total wages, a level that's "higher than any other year since 1917."

Not all economists agree income inequality is a bad thing. Perhaps, argues George Mason professor of economics Tyler Cowen, inequality is less an indication of struggling workers at the bottom than the result of a small section of brilliant businessmen at the top. This type of thinking is exactly what eats away at the core of who we are as a nation.

Here are some simple truths:

•Income inequality is extreme and increasing: The top 1 percent of Americans control 23.5 percent of all the country's income, the highest share controlled by the top 1 percent since 1928.

•The U.S. is exceptionally unequal: The U.S. ranks #3 among all the advanced economies in the amount of income inequality.

•The poverty rate is extremely high: The U.S. poverty rate, according to the new National Academy of Science index, is estimated at 15.8 percent. Only one advanced economy, Mexico, has a higher relative poverty rate.

photo: Ove Overmyer

We at the Voice Reporter believe the root cause of income inequality, viewed in the most general terms, is extreme human ingenuity, albeit of a perverse amoral kind. No economy will grow or survive without a strong middle-class. That is why it is so hard for us to wrap our minds around how some, not all, with unspeakable wealth and their complicit puppet lawmakers could care less about the welfare of others in a time of immeasurable suffering. Individual materialism and wealth now heavily outweigh any sense of civic self sacrifice.

How can lawmakers continue to promote legislation to benefit 2 percent of Americans? Just yesterday, House Republicans unanimously voted down a motion from Democrats to consider legislation to end subsidies to oil companies, making sure they will continue to receive our tax payer dollars above and beyond as long as they are in office. To say that "This is just the way things are," or "that's capitalism," is just not acceptable nor is it a reasonable answer. That's not the America we know. The America we know has its sights set on the greater good.

-Commentary by Ove Overmyer.
The opinon expressed here are the authors only and do not reflect the views of CSEA as an organization.