It has been 50 years since the release of a landmark US report on race and poverty. In a recent new study, it is revealed that the situation is much worse than it was reported in 1968.
"Nine Charts about Wealth Inequality in America (Updated)
Why hasn’t wealth inequality improved over the past 50 years? And why, in particular, has the racial wealth gap not closed? These nine charts illustrate how income inequality, earnings gaps, home ownership rates, retirement savings, student loan debt, and lopsided asset-building subsidies have contributed to these growing wealth disparities.
This story was updated with new data on October 5, 2017."
Please visit http://apps.urban.org/features/wealth-inequality-charts/, for good charts with relevant descriptions, for better understanding.
It is, or at least should be clear, that wealth inequality is the direct result of income inequality; where the income of the majority of Americans (10th and 50th percentile) was, in essence, flat lined since 1965, while the 90th percentile group (upper 10%) had about three times the income of the 50th percentile group; they had, at the same time, 12.6 times the income of the 10th percentile group.
How can this be in a just society? What kind of democracy is this? Where is the Government, supposedly representing all Americans? It turns out our Government is busy helping the rich to get richer, at the expense of the average working American citizen. Thanks to preferential treatment, by our political system, the rich accumulated significantly more wealth, while the disenfranchised majority became, in real terms, poorer.
Unwittingly, we stand in line for every election, which do not benefit us no matter who wins; in the last 50 years we had Democrats and Republicans control the White House and Congress, and yet we have this gruesome worsening of the historical inequality of income and wealth, reported 50 years ago. This clearly shows that we are used, with these elections, to legitimize their now legal robberies of the public wealth. Why should our labor be so badly paid, while the top, manipulating the economy, earn these astronomical salaries, and bonuses? It is the working person, who contributes real value to the economy, while the rich fail to contribute anything for the overall national gross product. They only things they have achieved, are filling their pockets, at the expense of the rest of us; the charts clearly show this. In reality, some of these CEOs make several thousand times the income the lowest paid get, for their hard labor.
It always amazes me how the public, at large, accepts this inequality, without too much complaint; some convinced themselves that this is the ways it has to be, because it was always like that. These people see this as a natural law of the universe, it seems, and therefore, nothing can be done about it. Sadly, the elites have managed to make the election process so expensive, that only the wealthy, or well supported by them, can play this game; it was not always like that. In the process we have lost the "Government of the people by the people, for the people".
"Government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth. - Abraham Lincoln"
Why is it that most changes, in many countries, are brought about by young people, who do not wear blinders yet, as do the grownups, apparently? I sincerely hope that the movement by the students of Parkland, will succeed to change the ridiculous gun laws, in our country, and by doing so, show us grownups, how change is brought about.
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