Wealth Gap In The U.S. Is Still Growing

Back in 2007, this nation was thrown into a serious recession. While that recession was triggered by the malfeasance and incompetence of the giant Wall Street firms, the root cause of it was the huge gap in wealth between the richest people in America and the rest of America ( just as the Great Depression was rooted in the same kind of vast inequality of wealth).

Economists now tell us that the recession is over. The stock market is booming and corporate profits are at record levels. But the truth is that the recession is only over for the rich and the corporations, while the vast bulk of Americans are still feeling the effects of that recession -- because of huge unemployment, stagnant wages, deteriorating buying power of minimum (and stagnant) wages, drastic cuts in government spending (especially in social programs), and a weakened union movement.

After the Great Depression, the federal government took steps to bring down the huge gap in wealth inequality -- and that resulted in a healthy and booming economy. But the current federal government has done nothing to address the vast inequality of wealth in this country -- resulting in the continuation of economic suffering for most Americans, while the corporations and the rich get richer.

As the charts above show (from the Pew Research Center), the wealth gap has only gotten larger and continues to grow. In just two years, from 2009 to 2011, the share of this nation's wealth held by the top 7% has grown from 56% to about 63% (from $19.8 trillion to $25.4 trillion). In that same period, the aggregate wealth of the bottom 93% of Americans has shrunk from 44% to 37% of the nation's total wealth (from $15.4 trillion to $14.8 trillion). That's a huge chuck of America's total wealth that has been grabbed by the rich in only two years!

Those shocking figures show why most Americans are still suffering from the Bush recession -- and why the United States is fast becoming one of the most unequal nations in the world in terms of wealth (and income). There are many so-called "banana republics" that now have a more equal wealth distribution than the United States does.

Why does this wealth gap continue to grow? Because the federal government has still not abandoned the Republican-inspired "trickle-down" economics (which tilted the economic playing field to favor the rich). This must be changed! Failure to do so will result in another recession -- perhaps even greater than the Great Depression.