The Startling Growth of Inequality

In The End of the American Century, first published in 2008, I called attention to the disturbing growth of economic inequality in the U.S., to levels (even then) unprecedented since the Great Depression of the 1920s. But since 2008, in the midst of the "Great Recession," the situation has gotten even worse. A recent (3/25) New York Times op-ed by Steven Rattner, "The Rich Get Even Richer," notes that in 2010 (during the supposed economic recovery), "the top 1 percent took in 93 percent of the additional income" generated that year. A graphic linked to that article on line shows the pattern.

In a forthcoming article I have written which reflects on the themes of The End of the American Century, four years on, I contend that the unprecedented growth of economic inequality in the U.S. is the single biggest issue preventing the recovery of the United States--and in many ways the root cause of the many problems facing the U.S. in these difficult times.