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BURGESS
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Date: 2026-01-17 Page is: DBtxt001.php txt00023566
US INEQUALITY
INCREASE IN INEQUITY FROM 1989 TO 2018
Robert Reich graphic ... the problem is known, but nobody with power does anything about it
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY
This graphic makes my blood boil ... a socio-economic system that gets a result like this is a total aberration, yet this is what we now have in the United States.
br> I am particularly incensed by this because it is something that has been getting worse over a long period of time ... arguably going back 40 years to the Reagan era and the time when Trickle Down economics was being promoted.
br> While the results shown in this graphic are horrendous, there is a silver lining.
br> Part of the reason why the 'top' has been able to become so rich and powerful is because there has been amazing progress in science and technology and knowledge which has enabled productivity improvement over the past three decades like never before. That is the good news. The bad news is that almost all the benefit of improved productivity has gone to the top with almost none of it going to the rest of us.
br> I find this graphic prepared by Robert Reich several years ago to be quite informative. For more than three decades post WWII wages and productivity went up together, but then around the end of the 1970s wages flatlined even though productivity continued to improve.
br>


There are many reasons why little was done to address the problem of stagnant wages. In many ways it was a perfect storm.
(1) The very top were impressed with themselves and had little interest in doing anything beyond preserving their immense success. To a conciderable extent they spent quite liberally to keep their very advantageous positions;
(2) The next few percent were pretty happy and intent on preserving their positions ... they never got round to rocking the boat; and
(3) Everyone else simply had to take the crumbs that were left
br> Better metrics can help ... maybe better metrics can help a lot!
Peter Burgess



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