{"id":59160,"date":"2013-12-05T08:00:31","date_gmt":"2013-12-05T13:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.lclark.edu\/hart-landsberg\/?p=1897"},"modified":"2013-12-04T17:31:30","modified_gmt":"2013-12-04T22:31:30","slug":"does-rising-inequality-threaten-future-economic-stability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/2013\/12\/05\/does-rising-inequality-threaten-future-economic-stability\/","title":{"rendered":"Does Rising Inequality Threaten Future Economic Stability?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>According to an article at the\u00a0<em><a href=\"http:\/\/online.wsj.com\/news\/articles\/SB10001424052702304672404579186223105265440?mod=WSJ_hps_sections_markets\">Wall Street Journal<\/a><\/em>, \u00a0the average income for the bottom 90% of families fell by over 10% from 2002 &#8211; 2012 while the average income for families in all the top income groups grew. \u00a0The top 0.01% of families actually saw their average yearly income grow from a bit over $12 million to over $21 million over the same period. \u00a0And that is adjusted for inflation and without including capital gains.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.lclark.edu\/hart-landsberg\/2013\/11\/16\/worries-about-inequality\/mi-bz607_unequa_g_20131110150005\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1898\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-full wp-image-1898 aligncenter\" alt=\"MI-BZ607_UNEQUA_G_20131110150005\" src=\"http:\/\/blogs.lclark.edu\/hart-landsberg\/files\/2013\/11\/MI-BZ607_UNEQUA_G_20131110150005.jpg\" width=\"555\" height=\"398\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>What was most interesting about the article was its discussion of the dangers of this trend and the costs of reversing it. \u00a0In brief, the article noted that many financial analysts now worry that inequality has gotten big enough to threaten the future economic and political stability of the country. \u00a0At the same time, it also pointed out that doing anything about it will likely threaten profits. \u00a0As the article notes:<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">But if inequality has risen to a point in which investors need to be worried, any reversal might also hurt.<\/p>\n<p style=\"padding-left: 30px;\">One reason U.S. corporate profit margins are at records is the share of revenue going to wages is so low. Another is companies are paying a smaller share of profits on taxes. An economy where income and wealth disparities are smaller might be healthier. It would also leave less money flowing to the bottom line, something that will grab fund managers\u2019 attention.<\/p>\n<p>Any bets how those in the financial community will evaluate future policy choices?<\/p>\n<span class=\"ft_signature\">Martin Hart-Landsberg is a professor of economics at <a href=\"http:\/\/college.lclark.edu\/faculty\/members\/martin_hart-landsberg\/\">Lewis and Clark College<\/a>.  You can follow him at <a href=\"https:\/\/economicfront.wordpress.com\/\">Reports from the Economic Front<\/a>.<\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Wall Street Journal had an interesting article about income inequality. What follows is a chart from the article which shows that average income for the bottom 90% of families actually fell by over 10% from 2002-2012 while the average income for families in all the top income groups grew. &nbsp;The top 0.01% of families [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1853,"featured_media":59165,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,36,23635,253,3920,76],"class_list":["post-59160","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-class","tag-economics","tag-economics-history","tag-history","tag-nation-united-states","tag-work"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/files\/2013\/11\/Screenshot_220.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59160","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1853"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59160"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59160\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59164,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59160\/revisions\/59164"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59165"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59160"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59160"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/socimages\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59160"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}