News Flash: Inequality in Neoliberal America – David Schultz/Counterpunch
“Generally the IDDA study confirms other reports of the growing income gap. Between 2005 and 2019 those in the bottom ten percent saw their adjusted gross income increase by 5%, whereas those in the top two percent saw a 23% increase. One of the most startling conclusions of the report according to the Federal Reserve Board was that a ‘household in the bottom 20 percent of the distribution now makes exactly the same as it was making 50 years ago, in real terms.’…
“The IDDA report provides perhaps the best detail we have so far on the economic and social consequences of neo-liberal economic policies in America. It demonstrates uneven distributions of benefits in ways that nearly everyone can claim to be a loser while also pointing to relative winners, thereby thwarting efforts to form any solidarity to fight these policies. Yet despite this socio-economic news, voters this November will face a rematch of two neo-liberal presidential candidates, with little hope that the pattern of inequality and frozen mobility will change.”