Income inequality

Income Gap ©2013 Paul Merrill“Both liberal and conservative economists agree that, yes, income inequality has increased since the 1970s.” -Andy Serwer, the managing editor of Fortune magazine. That is from a telling editorial he wrote in the September 2, 2013 issue.

Mr. Serwer quoted several statistics from the US Congressional Budget Office October 2011 report, including, “between 1979 and 2007 … [for] the top 1% of earners, income grew 275%, and for the bottom 20% of earners, household income grew only 18%.”

Andy went on to basically say he did not have a solution, except that increasing the value of education is a start. I completely agree with that approach.

A Wells Fargo ad just four pages later was an interesting juxtaposition – touting the value of their customers taking out home equity loans to pay for things like a child’s Tuscan (Italy) wedding.

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5 Replies to “Income inequality”

  1. Problem…increasingly, only the top tier can afford the education. That causes increasing “opportunity gap,” a much bigger issue.

    As for the ad…who reads FORTUNE? Mostly rich folks (like you). 🙂

    1. Rich – I got the subscription for free. I could never get enough frequent flyer points to get a free flight, but free magazines were do-able.

  2. I remember when the president first made $200,000 a year. It startled me to learn that presidents from Washington to Lincoln made $25,000 a year as president. That was a lot of money back then!

    My first US job was at minimum wage, which had just jumped to $2.35 an hour that year (1977). At the time, milk cost less than a dollar, eggs were 69 cents, bread about the same, and gas was 54 cents.

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