“During the late 1980s and the late 1990s, the United States experienced two unprecedentedly long periods of sustained economic growth–the “seven fat years” and the “long boom.” Yet from 1980 to 2005, more than 80 percent of total increase in Americans’ income went to the top 1 percent. Economic growth was more sluggish in the aughts, but the decade saw productivity increase by about 20 percent. Yet virtually none of the increase translated into wage growth at middle and lower incomes.“
In a must-read series at Slate, Timothy Noah delves into income inequality in America, a.k.a. “The Great Divergence.” “Even Alan Greenspan, the former Federal Reserve Board chairman and onetime Ayn Rand acolyte, has registered concern. ‘This is not the type of thing which a democratic society — a capitalist democratic society — can really accept without addressing,’ Greenspan said in 2005.“