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Obama has recently said that income inequality is the big issue of the modern age (Funny, I thought it was health care reform. What ever happened to that? )
New York mayor de Blasio says his first priority will be addressing income inequality.
So: How will we know they've achieved their stated goals? When there's income "equality"?
What is income 'equality'?
Income inequality is paying Barack Hussein $400K year as an entry-level employee of the federal government with no experience.
While few want to really look at how this translates to this country a simple view is Walmart. You have a few people at the top that have employed many at the bottom willing to work for a poverty income so that they can make billions. Costco is a more equal situation where the workers make a good wage while the company prospers. Walmart wage is $8 vs $20 at Costco.
The masses that make their $60,000 income sit comfortable and that there is no problem, until they realize the wages of the nation have slipped us to a third world status, where our labor is as cheap as the counties we farm out to. What does this mean? If the minimum wage kept up with inflation the wage would exceed $15/ hr so you have all the middle incomes that have not kept up with inflation either. Those $60,000 incomes should be in the $140,000 range in order to stay even. This affects all income levels, just some are at a comfort level, they don't feel the pinch in the same way. They may put off buying the new car for a few years, or picking state schools for the kids or what ever.
You can feel good because the highest income level earners have seen their incomes take stratospheric rises while the masses work for less of the pie so they can take the lion share. While many in here begrudge those asking for a minimum wage increase, you too are working for the elite few so they can buy another G4.
The term is misleading, because no one expects everyone to make the same amount of money.
The problem is in the slow rate of economic increase/improvement in middle and low classes. The figure below illustrates the economic (wealth) growth in different classes of people since 1979. The problem is not the fact that rich are getting richer, but the fact that the poor and middle classes are not improving fast enough.
If people behaved ideally and without emotion, you'd be right. But the evidence from real life and scientific studies proves otherwise: income inequality is a fast track to crime and generalized instability. Most of the social problems in the US, Brazil and South Africa are caused by economic inequality.
I've never seen anything to support your post. Please provide data.
The confusion that is typically fostered with regard to income inequality demonstrates the childish games right-wingers play to try to avoid having to face important issues with honesty and integrity. Income inequality is an indicator. It is a measurement. The measurement clearly shows something. That something that the measurement shows is a divergence between flat (or in real terms, declining) wages for the poor and the middle-class coincident with sharply increasing wealth for the rich. Only an idiot denies increasing income inequality. It is like denying that rain is wet. Legitimate discussion (which right-wingers avoid) begins after the recognition of the reality, and involves what if anything should be done about the situation.
Right-wingers generally defend the divergence by attempting to characterize their callous disregard for those most vulnerable in society as an ethic and as justification for their objection to liberal efforts to address the underlying causes for the divergence. By contrast, what liberals want is economic justice. And following EmeraldCityWanderer's lead, I'll give you the tools you should know how to make use of yourself, already, but may be too lazy to do so, to understand what economic justice is:
I see what you mean by "childish games". Your post certainly fits that description.
The term is misleading, because no one expects everyone to make the same amount of money.
The problem is in the slow rate of economic increase/improvement in middle and low classes. The figure below illustrates the economic (wealth) growth in different classes of people since 1979. The problem is not the fact that rich are getting richer, but the fact that the poor and middle classes are not improving fast enough.
Good post and spot on. I don't give a rats azz about inequality. I don't care how much money George Soros makes. I do care what working Americans make, and a huge part of the inequality problem is jobs. There is a direct correlation between jobs per household and income. If we could get the government out of the way, millions of non working Americans could have jobs and the income problem would greatly diminish.
Don't agree...I think he's saying that it's okay if the top 1 percent necessarily skyrockets into the stratosphere, as long as the poor and middle class make good economic progress.
Don't agree...I think he's saying that it's okay if the top 1 percent necessarily skyrockets into the stratosphere, as long as the poor and middle class make good economic progress.
when the top 1% increases in wealth, it erodes the purchasing power of the other 99% , in the form of higher prices.
this is why income inequality matters in the first place: purchasing power.
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