“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.
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). 🙂
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.
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.
If being paid for the amount of stress in your job were part of the equation, the president is underpaid.
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/explainer/2001/01/a_presidential_salary_faq.html