Every lover of democracy should read Pulitzer Prize-winner David C. Johnston’s “Divided, the Perils of Our Growing Inequality.” The book’s 311 pages detail and document the many parts of people’s lives adversely affected by income inequality. Others have mentioned the current cost of raising a child [$233,000] inhibits the parent’s lives – and they may not have children because they can’t afford them… THEY MAY NOT HAVE CHILDREN BECAUSE THEY CAN’T AFFORD THEM…… Which means American society is writing its own obituary. The perils of inequality are ancient:
“Any city, however small, is in fact divided into two, one city of the poor, the other of the rich; these are at war with one another.” Plato
“An imbalance between rich and poor is the oldest and most fatal ailment of all republics.” Plutarch
Consider the numbers. Trade rules destroyed factory jobs – more than 50,000 factories and 2,8 million jobs offshored to China. [WHO wrote the rules?] The real cost must include the “multiplier” effect of factory jobs – 2.4. The total number of jobs lost was 2.8 million, plus 6.72 million more jobs. By 2012, the majority’s average income had shrunk 13% from 1973 [$35,584 to $30, 997 in 2012 dollars]. Almost 1/3 of Americans with any kind of job in 2012 made less than $15,000. Since 1980, nearly 2/3 of households [32 of l00 million] have declared bankruptcy.
“The disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and powerful, and to despise, or at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition is the great and almost universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.” Adam Smith, “The Theory of Moral Sentiments”
In 2012, people whose jobs paid cash wages of $5 million grew by 27%. Very highly paid jobs grew so fast, the Social Security Administration changed its top comp rate in 1994 from “more than $5 million” to “more than $20 million.” And, in 1997, raised the top to “more than $50 million.” The top 1% saw their income increase by 153% between 1973 and 2012. At the very top, top 1% of top 1%, their income skyrocketed from $5.4 million in 1966 to $30.8 million in 2012.
“Verily I say unto you, That a rich man shall hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven….It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.” Jesus Christ, Matthew 19
After the top 1% caused the “Great 2008 Recession,” between 2009-2012, just 16,000 U>S> households took 31% of all increased income of America’s 315 million people. Analysis of tax returns revealed the bottom 90% income shrank by 15.7%.
“We can either have a democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.” Justice Louis Brandeis
Between 1961 – 2011, the U.S’s top 400 taxpayers tax burden fell by 60%. The total tax burden for the bottom 90% actually slightly increased. The burden of government has been shifted to the lower 90%. add to this, attacks in Congress on child labor laws, on unions of all kinds, on environmental laws of all kinds – which are actually attacks on the quality of life.”
“The man of great wealth owes a peculiar obligation to the state because he derives special advantages from the mere existence of the government.” President Theodore Roosevelt
Part of the cost for inequality is less spending on what used to be considered essential public goods: 50% of roads/highways in “Backlog” – not maintained on time, so costs 2-5 times more & add minimum vehicle damage of $120 annually]; inspections of food imports are down 75% from 1981 [200-500 deaths]; slow upgrades in water supply systems [45 million endangered]; opposition to cleaner air [15,000 lives, 140,000 affected]; falling educational support [declining SAT teacher scores & bigger classes]; slashed funding for many social net services.
“Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories – which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world. This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacrilized workings of the prevailing economic system.” Pope Francis I
October, 2012, the “Economist” magazine stated that the magnitude and nature of America’s inequality represented a serious threat to the country. The International Monetary Fund noted a systematic relationship between inequality and economic instability.
Pulitzer Prize-winner Joseph Stiglitz noted that inequality means many children will never live up to their potential. More than 20% of American kids live in poverty. Children in other rich countries – Canada, France, Germany, Sweden – have a better chance of doing better than their parents than American children do. And – this is before the skyrocketing college tuition cost, and debt that follows. This inhibits marriage, home buying, and even having children.
“American inequality didn’t just happen. It was created.” Joseph Stiglitz”
“…a sophisticated multimillion-dollar industry has developed to consult and advise employers on how to oppose unions and frighten workers…No other industrialized nation has such a powerful union-busting industry or weaker labor protections.”
“In the general course of human nature, a power over a man’s subsistence amounts to a power over his will.” Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist
It was estimated that in 2010, Federal subsidies to corporations – loopholes, direct cash transfers, etc. totaled $170 billion. State and local corporate subsidies were in the $700 billion range. But “we can’t afford subsidized child care.” RIGHT?
“Great wealth always supports the party in power, no matter how corrupt it may be. It never exerts itself for reform, for it instinctively fears change.” Henry George, 1884
sean f. reardon’s “No Rich Child Left Behind” documents one of the main consequences of income inequality: rich kids entering kindergarten much better prepared. From 1972-2006, the rich increased amounts spent on their children’s enrichment activities by 150%. This leads to a growing educational gap between rich and middle class children; and false culprits like “failing schools.” Solution: do what the rich do, invest in children from the day they are born.
“communism is a hateful thing and a menace to peace and organized government; but the communism of combined wealth and capital, the out-growth of overweening cupidity and selfishness, which insidiously undermines justice and integrity of free institutions, is not less dangerous than the communism of oppressed poverty and toil.” President Grover Cleveland, 12/3/1888
Mike Rose says America cannot afford to ignore the 10 million community college students, many also working; nor can we ignore “tens of millions of young, marginally educated people who drift in and out of low-paying, dead-end jobs.” And – again, America spends “much less as a share of GDP than almost any other rich country” on these same people. And – after the 2008 Crash, America started cutting back on public library services [only free internet sources in 2/3 of communities].
An estimated 22-100,000 people die annually in the USA – no access to health care. Half of US emergency rooms report daily overcrowding; 500,000 ambulances are diverted each year. Our overcrowded and underfunded emergency care system is ill prepared to respond to any major disaster – natural, disease, terrorist.
“What do I care about the law? Hain’t I got the power?” Cornelius Vanderbilt
In 2010, about 48.8 million Americans lived in food-insecure households. 40% had to choose between paying rent/mortgage and buying food. America’s “Hunger Bill” is $167.5 billion yearly for lost productivity, compensation for low educational achievement, poor health, depression, suicides and charity cost. A 2007 study, “The Economic Costs of Domestic Hunger,” said: “The nation pays far more by letting hunger exist than it would if our leaders took steps to eliminate it.”
“The children who go to bed hungry in a Harlem slum or a West Virginia mining town are not being deprived because no food can be found to give them; they are going to bed hungry because, despite all our miracles of invention and production, we have not yet found a way to make the necessities of life available to all our citizens – including those whose failure is not of personal industry or initiative, but only the unwise choice of parents.” Senator J.William Fulbright, 1964
The $60 billion-a-year U.S. prison system is a “second line of defense” against people not helped by other social institutions: welfare, education, employment and job training, mental health programs. America is #1 for locking people up. Inequality and punishment “are intimately linked.” The U.S. jailed population rapidly escalated from 250,000 to 2.3 million by 2009; over 30 million have been affected in the last 30 years. These people are usually negatively affected for life – a consequence inflicted upon their families and communities. “Few doubt this system works.”
“We hold that the moral obligation of providing for old age, helpless infancy, and poverty, is far superior to that of supplying invented wants of courtly extravagance, ambition, and intrigue.” Thomas Paine, 1791
There will be future costs. A 1/30/2015 report said 47% of Americans spend all their income, go into debt, or use savings to exist. TO EXIST A major future consequence is well known: poverty in old age. Old age medical bills will rise for Medicare. Destitute seniors will be living on the taxpayers’ dime in nursing homes [as many already are]. Not only loss of old age dignity, but massive taxpayer expense will happen. Another consequence of the skyrocketing 1980-2018 income inequality crisis. The gains of American wealth have been “privatized;” the pains are/will be socialized.
And – we haven’t even discussed the coming robot-takes-your-job crisis. People with money and power, and knowledge of the future, are already planning and investing in AI and robotics. Without significant ideological changes, America could become a very unpleasant place to live. Perhaps this will be the final consequence of the current obscene income inequality. Plutarch and Justice Brandeis will have been proven correct.
“God gave me my money.” John D. Rockefeller, Sr.
With Justice For All 