How We Went from Land of Opportunity to Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous

Income inequality isn’t something new

Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash

The media is filled with stories related to income inequality lately. Consider the following:

• Riots in Chile: Riots that started as a protest over an increase in transit fares has transitioned into a mass movement to address income inequality left over from the Pinochet dictatorship that ended in 1990. Folks in Chile were promised that democracy and capitalism would bring widespread prosperity. Instead, the income inequality that helped topple the brutal dictator has continued. The irony here? According to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), inequality in the United States is comparable to that in Chile. And in Chile, income inequality is falling, unlike what is happening here.
• The Trump tax cuts didn’t work: This is perhaps the least surprising story on the list, but here it is anyway. The Trump tax cuts passed by a unified Republican party in Congress in 2017 were supposed to deliver high growth and trickle down economic benefits to workers. What has actually happened? Anemic growth, stagnant wages, a recession in manufacturing, lower investment . . . in other words, exactly the opposite of what was supposed to happen. Oh, but it did dramatically increase income inequality.