Income Inequality: Tearing the Fabric of America

The Latin phrase, E Pluribus Unum has been woven into the fabric of our nation from nearly the beginning of our history. These words are engraved on our coins, public buildings, passports, and even the great seal of the United States. Its meaning is simple, “many united into one”, an accurate translation would be “From many, One”.

The spirit of E Pluribus Unum unfortunately has become largely symbolic. Our national unity is threatened by growing income inequality; economic inequality that detaches the upper class from the middle class. The question is how much inequality can the Republic stand before our social and political fabric tears apart?

Over the last 30 years, wealth in the United States has been steadily concentrating in the upper economic echelons.  The top 1 percent used to control a little over 30 percent of the wealth, they now control 40 percent. It’s a trend that was for decades brushed under the rug but now the scale is pushed so far out of balance it can no longer be ignored.

Over the last decade, the rich are becoming obscenely richer as the average income for the top one percent of earners rose 281 percent, or $973,000 per household. The bottom fifth saw their incomes increase by only 16 percent, or $2,400 even with two working per household in many cases. Today’s corporate CEOs are paid more than 350 times that of the average worker.  The 2008 recession added to the disparity by increasing home foreclosures, personal bankruptcies and the numbers of Americans – nearly 50 million – struggling against poverty or near poverty.

The issue of inequality is often presented as being only about the poor, but this is neither an accurate or complete assessment.  Society as a whole is poorer as inequality becomes greater. We are all poorer for living in more unequal societies as the impacts of inequality show up in poorer health, lower educational attainment, higher crime rates, lower consumer spending, and a lack of economic mobility.

Income inequality has been growing for the past 30 years in most of the world’s
advanced economies, especially in the United States. For the U.S, the growing income gap is the direct result of low taxes for the wealthy, a weak trade union
movement, and a low minimum wage. Additional factors include the underfunding
of America’s schools not allowing them to keep pace with the step-up in skills
that advancing technology demands from our labor force. Furthermore, America’s skewed immigration policy has inadvertently brought more unskilled than skilled
immigrants and thereby subjects already lower-income workers to greater
competition for jobs against rising competition with China, India and other
low-wage countries. The failure of the minimum wage to keep up with inflation; the decline of labor unions, especially among employees of private-sector firms; and what amounts to an anti-worker attitude among American politicians in general and Republicans in particular all contribute to our nations widening income gap.

The income gap is a nationwide problem, although, southern states such as Mississippi, Louisiana, Alabama, Texas, Tennessee, and Kentucky have the highest levels of income inequality coupled with the lowest levels of educational attainment. What is difficult to explain is that at the same time these southern states are dealing with the highest levels of poverty and much poorer outcomes in areas like healthcare they are also opposing the national health care plan even
though their people would benefit most from federal healthcare programs. An
example would be a person that contributes to a fundraiser for a neighbor’s
medical expenses, yet opposes “Obamacare”.

There is a growing fear that inequality between the rich and middle class will be the death of this country someday.  Even the Roman Empire, a society built on conquest and slave labor, had a more equitable income distribution. The middle class is shrinking and working longer hours for less. There was a time
when company owners felt an obligation to share with their employees. That no
longer happens as big conglomerates found out they could get more work out of
fewer people at lower wages and are not hiring, even though they are making
huge profits.

When it comes to economic inequality in America, you would have to be blind not to see that we are moving in the wrong direction and we have been headed that way for too long.  Our obsession with the market economy has resulted in modest social programs, Social Security and Medicare, while most of the other industrialized democracies provide a broad array of social insurance benefits, including universal health care. Japan and the Scandinavian nations have the lowest income inequality, offering cradle-to-grave social programs.

The 2012 election did prove one disturbing idea to be accurate; there is a small group of ultra-privileged that control policy and are intent upon maintaining their affluent status quo, but they are upset by the results of this election, despite owning the media, super-pacs, and our economy, they haven’t been able to root out the last remnant of outrage over the gross disparity of income in America. Until they have their ultimate triumph along with the unconditional surrender of all Americans they are going to hold our economy hostage, blame President Obama, and will not be content until there is one of their own in the White House and they reclaim their rightful place on their political throne.