Bloomberg (January 18)
“China’s successful control of Covid-19 made it the only major economy to have grown last year, but a wide income inequality gap and still weak consumer spending reflects an unbalanced recovery.”
Tags: China, Consumer spending, Control, COVID-19, Gap, Income inequality, Major economy, Successful, Unbalanced recovery, Weak
Chicago Tribune (September 26)
“The gap between the haves and have-nots in the United States grew last year to its highest level in more than 50 years of tracking income inequality.” Demographics is one of the drivers. “On one side, at the peak of their earnings, are baby boomers who are nearing retirement, if they haven’t already retired. On the other side are millennials and Gen Zers, who are in the early stages of their work life and have lower salaries.”
Tags: Baby boomers, Demographics, Earnings, Gap, Gen Zers, Income inequality, Millennials, Retirement, Salaries, U.S., Work
New York Times (February 3)
In recent decades, per capita GDP has doubled in the U.S., but “the bulk of the bounty has flowed to the very rich. The middle class has received relative crumbs. If middle-class pay had increased as fast as the economic growth, the average middle-class family would today earn about $15,000 a year more than it does, after taxes and benefits.”
Tags: Benefits, Bounty, Economic growth, GDP, Income inequality, Middle class, Rich, Taxes, U.S.
Time (January 22)
“Four out of every five dollars of wealth generated in 2017 ended up in the pockets of the richest one percent, while the poorest half of humanity got nothing,” according to a recent report by Oxfam, which “highlights a global system that rewards the super-rich and neglects the poor.”
Wall Street Journal (March 2)
“The fundamental economic issue facing America” is not headline-grabbing income inequality, but rather “jobs—their scarcity and the quality of those that people manage to find.” When the marginally employed are included, the real unemployment rate is closer to 13% and part-time jobs now account for 18% of the workforce. “Job losses in the low-wage and minimum-wage category is the critical issue of our day: Too many of the poor are not working full time or at all.”
Tags: Full-time, Income inequality, Job losses, Jobs, Minimum wage, Poor, Quality, Scarcity, U.S., Unemployment, Wages, Work, Workforce
Institutional Investor (October Issue)
We are living in “disparate times.” Income inequality hit a record in 2012, with the top 10% accounting for 50.4% of total earnings. Much as hypertension can lead to a coronary event, “inequality my leave markets prone to crashes.”