Wealth Gap

Many Americans bewail the growing gap between the haves and have-nots.  They are becoming more embarrassed by the enormous wealth accumulated by the few while the rest of society continues to be reduced in savings, earnings and all the rest.

Note: this situation does not necessarily mean a declining quality of life, although for many it does!  More on this in a later post.

The wealthiest Americans used to be counted in the top 5 to 10% of households. Usually these people were counted because of their high incomes. Wealth of course has many components – income, accumulated financial assets, large homes or estates, life styles that include long and costly vacations, whirlwinds of social activities at expensive restaurants and night spots, as well as jewelry, clothes and a fleet of posh automobiles, and planes! 

It is the latter that are viewed as the truly rich. And this number continues to grow. We used to think of millionaires as incredibly rich, but now it is the billionaires capturing our attention. Their rise in assets has been astounding. The sheer number of billionaires is surprising. We conclude that the rich are getting richer, even fabulously so.

That is not a bad thing in itself. It becomes bad when the rich are absorbing the wealth from tens of millions of others, and increasingly are influential enough to ensure this remains so.

It has been said often that the poor will always be with you. In fact that statement I believe comes directly from the Bible. But what numbers of poor are we to expect?  Recent statistics released by the US government report just under 15% of its population are poor. Nearly 20% of all children in the US live in poverty. On the positive side this is the first time that less than 15% of the population in America lived in poverty. The numbers have been much higher for a long, long time.

The poor often are structurally poor in their education, housing, geographic areas that are consistently lacking in economic growth opportunities and the like.  Certainly health conditions are part of this story as well. If a person has chronic illnesses, poor health care and limited health services available or poor or no health insurance coverage, their situation is almost always certain to result in continued poverty. The War On Poverty waged by President Lyndon B. Johnson in the 1960’s was designed to end those causes of poverty. It was a grand fight but it failed in the end. It helped some, but poverty remained a stubborn embarrassment for America.

Today poverty takes on a different definition. It includes retirees, working poor, the unhealthy poor (under insured and burdened by high health care costs), and people once thought to be wealthy but no longer.

Today’s wealth gap is a product of timing and national policy.  Whether it continues will be argued and struggled with at the ballot box.

Legendary Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said:

“We can either have democracy in this country or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”

He was correct when he uttered these words of wisdom, and he is correct today as the system has continued to careen out of control in the hands of the few for the benefit of the few.

As policy setters in Congress continue to set policy in favor of the wealthy in order to fund their re-election campaigns, poverty continues to grow in their own backyards.  It is reported that:

“97% of the 100 poorest counties in America are in red states [republican] but tell me again how republican policies grow the economy?” ~Author Unknown but found in a liberal website on the Internet

At some point such policies will become unsustainable. Worse, they will likely cause great social unrest that will cause major sections of the nation’s social systems to implode.  Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vt) has it right, I think:

            “Nobody who works 40 hours a week should be living in poverty.”

Amen to that!  Amen!

Addressing health care costs and adequate health care insurance coverage is a small beginning to address what’s wrong in America. The Affordable Care Act is a good step in the right direction. However, political opposition to the ACA continues to threaten its existence, and trimmed many early components of the proposed legislation. Conservatives and Republicans have waged war on the ACA from its inception. Either they are against President Obama on personal and political grounds, or they are protecting their political power source. Either is an insult to most American citizens.

The commonweal is the focus of government. Either the nation is healthy or not. It is not in the economic sense. And the justice sense. And the education sense. And the cultural sense. It must be faced that America is in trouble on many fronts.

To regain its health all Americans must be engaged in the process. And that means economically as well as employed, healthy, educated and all the rest.

This is our nation. It belongs to all of us. Not just the wealthy and the lucky.

But who is listening to this? Anyone?

September 18, 2014