From the posts in this thread it is clear that the vast majority of people have no idea what is meant by "income inequality" in terms of it being a problem in the US. People are clearly buying the ridiculous, ignorant notion that is put forth by radical right-wing big-mouths that "income inequality" is merely the fact that people don't have "equal" incomes; they position it as though the opposing view is absolute communism where everybody has "equal income", such as a supermarket cashier having the same income as a doctor. That's just stupid.
The problem of "income inequality" is not the absolute inequality of incomes but the scale of the inequality. It is a matter of the fact that the top tier of the wealthy are increasing in income proportionally greater than the bottom groups.
US Income Inequality on Rise for Decades is now Highest Since 1928
Does anyone know what happened when income inequality got that high in 1928? A little thing called "The Great Depression" - ring a bell?
From the article:
"In 1928, the top 1% of families received 23.9% of all pretax income, while the bottom 90% received 50.7%. But the Depression and World War II dramatically reshaped the nation’s income distribution: By 1944 the top 1%’s share was down to 11.3%, while the bottom 90% were receiving 67.5%, levels that would remain more or less constant for the next three decades.
But starting in the mid- to late 1970s, the uppermost tier’s income share began rising dramatically, while that of the bottom 90% started to fall. The top 1% took heavy hits from the dot-com crash and the Great Recession but recovered fairly quickly: Saez’s preliminary estimates for 2012 (which will be updated next month) have that group receiving nearly 22.5% of all pretax income, while the bottom 90%’s share is below 50% for the first time ever (49.6%, to be precise).
A century ago, Saez notes that the highest earners derived much of their income from earnings on the accumulated wealth of past generations. By contrast, “[t]he evidence suggests that top incomes earners today are…“working rich,” highly paid employees or new entrepreneurs who have not yet accumulated fortunes comparable to those accumulated during the Gilded Age.”
Americans aren’t unaware of these trends. More than half (61%) of Americans said the U.S. economic system favors the wealthy, while just 35% said it’s fair to most people, according to a Pew Research Center survey conducted in March. A similar share (66%) of Americans said the gap between rich and poor had increased in the past five years; nearly three-quarters of respondents said the rich-poor gap was either a “very big” (47%) or “moderately big” (27%) problem."
If you're not in that top 1% and you think there is no income inequality problem then you are either ignorant or self-loathing.
And if you truly believe that when people complain about an "income inequality" problem that they mean they wish everyone had the same exact salary then you are extremely ignorant and/or gullible.
I work for a major Wall St. firm, right at their headquarters in Manhattan, and I know what's going on because I'm on the inside of one of the biggest Wall St. firms (we probably manage money for most of you). For the past 6+ years I have seen the Dow hit record after record, the US has rebounded from the recession in record fashion, and salaries have remained flat. What's the sense in that? What does that tell you? If you have any understanding of anything then it should tell you clearly that the record-breaking profits are being siphoned off to the top players in finance and not being re-invested into labor. That can only go on so long before there is a collapse. Our GDP is being wasted by being hoarded by the top tiers of the wealthy. It might as well be thrown down the toilet.
