Political Polarization Economic Inequality And Political Polarization

Did inequality really increase during the pandemic? Within the US, the very real forces pushing toward more inequality have been counteracted by an unprecedented outpouring of government aid Aug 09ist updated: Aug 09ist By Justin Fox, It is widely believed that the Covid pandemic and the reactions to it by governments and businesses accelerated an already-strong trend toward increasing economic inequality in the US People on the political left think this and people on the political right do too, a heartwarming exception to the political polarization of our age.

This belief is also based on some actual evidence. Poorer children have struggled much more with remote schooling than richer ones.

Four Threats: The Recurring Crises of American Democracy

And so on. It bottomed out in the second quarter of at a barely-there 0. In that sense, at least, inequality between the top and bottom decreased. Researchers at the Urban Institute estimated last month that, thanks to big job gains and the benefits included in the American Rescue Plan approved in March and earlier pandemic-aid legislation, the share of Americans below the poverty line would fall to 7.

Measuring poverty is complicated, especially over time. But the trend does seem to be headed in the right direction. Because the expected drop in poverty in owes so much to federal aid, some of it could prove temporary.

But gains for the lower part of the income distribution are also coming from the private sector in the form of higher wages. But the high wage growth before the pandemic and so far this year seems to be for real, and all the anecdotal evidence from the job market points to it continuing.

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In previous economic expansions the Political Polarization Economic Inequality And Political Polarization gains at the bottom of the scale came only after years of job growth; this time it seems to be the norm from the get-go. The most recent income-distribution numbers available are from in the case of Census Bureau survey data and for tax statistics from the Internal Revenue Service. It even fell slightly in andalthough it seems too early to make much of that.

Such broad measures of inequality have taken something of a backseat in recent years to the statistics on income and wealth at the very top compiled from tax data by economists Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, Gabriel Zucman and others. Given what we know from other sources it seems pretty likely that the income and wealth shares of the top 0.

One thing that is clear from the above chart is that inequality can decline, and decline by a lot. Amid the great equalization of the midth century, economist Simon Kuznets another Nobel winner wrote an influential paper in speculating that it might be in the nature of economic modernization and industrialization for inequality to at first increase and then decline. They may be right!]

Political Polarization Economic Inequality And Political Polarization - was

Analyzing these past challenges, Suzanne Mettler and Robert Lieberman note that four distinct characteristics of disruption emerge: Political polarization, racism and nativism, economic inequality, and excessive executive power. What is unique and alarming about the present moment in American politics is that all four conditions exist. By revisiting how earlier generations of Americans faced threats, however, we can still chart a path toward repairing our civic fabric and renewing democracy. Political Polarization Economic Inequality And Political Polarization.