Special thanks to Reagan.
And if the chart wasn’t clear enough:
Inter alia, the chart shows that both the Great Depression of the ’30s and the present crisis were immediately preceded by great buildups in inequality. When ordinary people lack the wealth to buy things– houses for example–the system crashes.
Slate currently has very good report on this topic called “The Great Divergence,” a name Krugman also used in his book to describe the economy in the post-1979 period.
The above chart shows the top 10% income share, and it’s pretty startling. Perhaps even more startling is the statistic that the richest 1% of Americans account for 24% of the nations income. And no, it’s not because these people work harder than the your average working-class citizen. In the world’s richest country, we should all find it extremely unjust and downright shameful that the top 1% make that much money when there are millions of Americans who can’t even feed their families.
To see how America’s inequalities compare to other countries (among the developed countries, it’s last), check out the CIA’s statistics.
Filed under: Politics/International Affairs
