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The rise of the working poor and the non-working rich
Key Excerpts from Article on Website of San Francisco Chronicle (San Francisco's leading newspaper)
Posted: April 12th, 2015
http://www.sfgate.com/opinion/reich/article/The-rise-of-the-...
Many believe that poor people deserve to be poor because theyre lazy. In reality, a large and growing share of the nations poor work full time sometimes 60 or more hours a week yet still dont earn enough to lift themselves and their families out of poverty. Its also commonly believed ... that the rich deserve their wealth because they work harder than others. In reality ... their wealth has been handed to them. The rise of these two groups the working poor and non-working rich is relatively new. Why are these two groups growing? The ranks of the working poor are growing because wages at the bottom have dropped, adjusted for inflation. The real value of the federal minimum wage is lower today than it was a quarter century ago. In addition, most recipients of public assistance must now work in order to qualify. The new work requirements havent reduced the number or percentage of Americans in poverty. Theyve just moved poor people from being unemployed and impoverished to being employed and impoverished. At the same time, the ranks of the non-working rich have been swelling. A study by the Boston College Center on Wealth and Philanthropy projects a total of $59 trillion passed down to heirs between 2007 and 2061. This is ... about to become the major source of income for a new American aristocracy. The tax code encourages all this by favoring unearned income over earned income.
Note: The above article was written by former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing income inequality news articles from reliable major media sources.
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