danajohnhill.org

One of my heroes, Paul Krugman, has a new blog entitled “The Conscience of a Liberal”, which is also the title of his upcoming book.  His new blog is appreciated, since, as he says, the limited space he is afforded in his New York Times column precludes the inclusion of charts and/or graphs.

The first graph I see in “The Conscience of a Liberal” depicts American economic disparity over the past 90 years.  It is stunning to see how the Second World War utterly crushed the preceding Gilded Age, when the very few wealthy controlled everything, and every other American was poor.  Following the War, there arose a vast middle class, which included my grandparents, and probably yours.  These people enjoyed decent wages thanks in part to high union membership.

Then came the “great divergence”.  Krugman writes that:

Since the late 1970s the America I knew has unraveled. We’re no longer a middle-class society, in which the benefits of economic growth are widely shared: between 1979 and 2005 the real income of the median household rose only 13 percent, but the income of the richest 0.1% of Americans rose 296 percent.

So much for a rising tide raising all boats.  Even in the time that I have been employed–roughly the last ten years–the wages of Americans have remained flat when adjusted for inflation, and, after accounting for skyrocketing housing and health care costs, a huge number of people find that it is getting harder and harder to make ends meet.

Education alone isn’t going to solve this problem.  We need a more progressive tax structure that really collects a fair share from those who most benefit from the society built with the sweat of working men.