image missing
Date: 2025-08-20 Page is: DBtxt003.php txt00025571
INEQUALITY
NOT NEW ... THIS WAS WRITTEN IN 2010

Plutocracy Reborn: U.S. Wealth Inequality Gap Largest since 1928


Original article: https://www.expertsure.com/2010/04/12/plutocracy-reborn-wealth-inequality-gap-largest-since-1928/
Peter Burgess COMMENTARY

Peter Burgess
Plutocracy Reborn: U.S. Wealth Inequality Gap Largest since 1928

April 12, 2010 (Accessed October 2023)

The greater the disparity in wealth between the very rich and everyone else, the more unstable an economy becomes. Our nation has now created a larger gap in the distribution of wealth than the massive chasm that helped fuel the Great Depression.

In 1928, one year before the global economic collapse, the wealthiest .001% of the U.S. population owned 892 times more than 90% of the nation’s citizens. Today, the top .001% of the U.S. population owns 976 times more than the entire bottom 90%. This is not sustainable, and makes for a very volatile economy. It would appear that the American empire is about to crash.

See the full-size wealth inequality chart at the Nation.

Food Stamp Usage Soars

This dire economic situation just didn’t happen by accident either. The wealthiest 1% reaped 2/3 of the economic benefits from Bush’s tax cuts. Cheney’s war-profiteering stock options continue to skyrocket, while many of us are now unemployed, just struggling to eat and pay rent. States across the country are reporting staggering increases in food stamp usage. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, last year the national increase was 18%; California’s food stamp usage has risen 30% since 2007.

food stamps

Half of all kids will be dependent upon food stamps at some point during their childhood.

UC Berkeley Professor of Economics, Emanuel Saez, has been researching the growing disparity in income inequality in the United States for years. His work was published in the Quarterly Journal of Economics; it provides in-depth analysis and useful insight into just how extremely economically polarized and desperate our country has become.

wealth inequality

growing economic gap

America's income spread is nearly twice that the average of other nations

The size of America’s income disparity is nearly twice that of the average of other nations.

So, what is the solution?

Some would say we are on the brink of a new kind of revolution. One where most people run their own businesses, and that slowly takes power away from the top and puts it back in the hands of the public. Just read End of Jobs or 4 hour work week to see how you can set up your own business and get out of poverty. Just look at how kickstarter and the likes are empowering anyone with an idea to compete with global players. Go forth and be free!

ADDRESS: expertsure.com Filwood Green Business Park 1 Filwood Park Lane Bristol BS4 1ET

0800 234 3036

SITE COUNT Amazing and shiny stats
Copyright © 2005-2021 Peter Burgess. All rights reserved. This material may only be used for limited low profit purposes: e.g. socio-enviro-economic performance analysis, education and training.