According to this BBC piece (and alot of other sources) the distribution of income and wealth in this country is becoming concentrated more and more at the top. While the country as a whole is seeing increasing economic growth the real effect of that growth goes mostly to wealthier people.
During the five years from 2000 to 2005, the US economy grew in size from $9.8 trillion to $11.2 trillion, an increase in real terms of 14%.
Productivity – the measure of the output of the economy per worker employed – grew even more strongly, by 16.6%.
But over the same period, the median family’s income slid by 2.9%, in contrast to the 11.3% gain registered in the second half of the 1990s.
Here’s a nice chart:
And another from the same article:
All this time I have felt like this is a bad idea since for me anyway a large part of what makes the US a great country is the thriving middle class which holds the whole American Dream idea together.
But I realized maybe I’m looking at it wrong. Maybe all these policies the Bush Administration is pursuing which simply accelerate wealth concentration (like cutting estate taxes etc.) are part of a clever hidden plan to reduce immigration across the southern border. After all once our Wealth distribution looks just like Mexico’s, why would anyone bother to cross the Rio grande?
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