Just the other day I wrote about how the majority of people in the United States are doing worse than their parents and how the American Dream is effectively not attainable any more.
That conclusion received some more proof in the form of a Congressional Budget Office data series on income equality in the United States between 2003 – 2005. The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer.
The after-tax income of the bottom 20% grew by 6%, hardly to cover increased costs of living, healthcare and transportation, while the income of the top 1% grew by 228%. Even worse the after-tax income inequality is growing faster than the pre-tax income inequality meaning the rich are paying less taxes than the poor.
The trickle-up economy is treating Bushies well. Too bad about the folks hit by hurricanes. The income inequality is worse than at any other time in US history for at least a century. We’re at a point where we’re approaching the robber baron era type of economy in the United States, if we didn’t already make it there.
The Economic Public Institute (EPI) concludes:
Such concentration of income is unsustainable in a democratic society. The distribution mechanisms that have historically worked to ensure much more equitable outcomes appear to be wholly inoperative. Fixing them must be at the heart of any serious economic policy discussion.
EPI’s analysis of the situation is on their website. EPI also posted a shorter blog article about the numbers.
It’d be interesting to hear what the presidential candidates think about this. I think I know what the Republicans would say, and I also know what John Edwards thinks about it.
-TPP
