FOR POOREST, INCOME GROWTH NEAR ZERO

“In recent years, trends in average living standards interacted with rising income inequality to produce stagnant wages in the lower and middle income groups. . . . since 2000, the decline in average income growth was further exacerbated for the lowest income groups by a declining share of the total. So, for the bottom fifth, the growth in real income declined from 3 percent . . . to essentially zero in the last fifteen years. Of this catastrophic decline, about half was due to the slower overall growth, while half was due to rising inequality.”

William D. Nordhaus, “Why Growth Will Fall, New York Review of Books, August 18, 2016, page 66.

MULTI-MILLIONAIRE SEES REVOLUTION COMING

Multi-millionaire Nick Hanauer is no dummy. He sees the writing on the wall.

“And what do I see in our future now?

“I see pitchforks.

“At the same time that people like you and me are thriving beyond the dreams of any plutocrats in history, the rest of the country — the 99.99 percent — is lagging far behind. The divide between the haves and have-nots is getting worse really, really fast. In 1980, the top one percent controlled about 8 percent of U.S. national income. The bottom half shared about 18 percent. Today, the top 1 percent [of the U.S. population] share about 20 percent; the bottom half, just 12 percent.

“But the problem isn’t that we have inequality. Some inequality is intrinsic to any high-functioning capitalist economy. The problem is that inequality is at historically high levels and getting worse every day. Our country is rapidly becoming less a capitalist society and more a feudal society. Unless our policies change dramatically, the middle class will disappear, and we will be back to late 18th-century France. Before the revolution.

“And so I have a message for my fellow filthy rich, for all of us who live in our gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won’t last.

“No society can sustain this kind of rising inequality. In fact, there is no example in human history where wealth accumulated like this and the pitchforks didn’t eventually come out. You show me a highly unequal society, and I will show you a police state. Or an uprising. There are no counter-examples. None. It’s not if, it’s when.

Nick Hanauer, “The Pitchforks Are Coming for Us Plutocrats,” Politico Magazine "The pitchforks are coming . . . for us Plutocrats"

GOVERNMENT CONTRACTORS One-percenters like Boeing, Northrup-Grumman, and Lockeed Martin have charged the government billons of dollars for post-911 safety projects. Read Steven Brill’s deeply incisive article in the September 2016 issue of The Atlantic magazine at http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/backissues/ page 61. Steven Brill, “Are We Any Safer?” The Atlantic, September 2016.

PEW SURVEY SHOWS NEAR-UNIVERSAL INCOME LOSSES

Households in all economic tiers experienced near-universal decreases in median incomes across U.S. metropolitan areas, according to the independent Pew Foundation’s Research Center. Middle-income households lost ground financially in 222 of 229 metropolitan areas from 1999 to 2014. Meanwhile, those in the lower-income tier saw their median income slip in 221 areas and those in the upper-income households took a financial hit in 215 areas.

Pew Research Center 2014 American Community Survey

MIDWEST HAS TOP 10 MIDDLE-CLASS AREAS

The 10 metropolitan areas with the greatest shares of middle-income adults are located mostly in the Midwest, according to the independent Pew Foundation’s Research Center. Metropolitan areas with the largest upper-income shares are mostly in the Northeast or on the California coast, while the 10 metropolitan areas with the biggest lower-income tiers are in the southwest, several on the border with Mexico.

Pew Research Center 2014 American Community Survey

TRUMP’S WHITE WORKING-CLASS SUPPORTERS

[Donald] Trump’s white working class supporters — who provide somewhere between 58 percent and 62 percent of his votes, according to data from NBC and ABC polls — have suffered a stunning loss of relative status over the past 40 years. Their wages have stagnated or declined; the ascendance of minorities has threatened their cultural dominance; and the growth of an increasingly large and affluent upper middle class has pushed goods and services once viewed as theirs by right beyond their reach.

Thomas B. Edsall, “How Falling Behind the Joneses Fueled the Rise of Trump,” New York Times, July 7, 2016, Opinion Pages.

MANY ESSENTIAL EXPENDITURES HAVE BECOME UNAFFORDABLE

For those in the bottom third of the income distribution, even essential expenditures have become unaffordable: the $7,000 to $10,000 average cost of a funeral, the $33,865 average cost of a new car, the $18,000 average annual cost of child care.

Crucially important is the fact that rising inequality constitutes a double whammy. It raises the cost of sought-after goods and it increases the economic gap between the working class and the affluent, spurring nostalgia for what was (even if what was really wasn’t).

Thomas B. Edsall, “How Falling Behind the Joneses Fueled the Rise of Trump,” New York Times, July 7, 2016, Opinion Pages.