OpEdNews: Patrick Martin
The United States is well on its way to becoming the most unequal society on the planet. An extensive economic analysis of the growing gap between the wealthy and everyone else, summarized in last Sunday's Washington Post, provides striking evidence of this trend.
The study, titled, "Jobs and Income Growth of Top Earners and the Causes of Changing Income Inequality: Evidence from U.S. Tax Return Data," was conducted by two academic economists, Jon Bakija of Williams College and Bradley Heim of Indiana University, together with Adam Cole of the Office of Tax Analysis at the US Department of Treasury.
<---snip--->
The United States is now far more unequal economically than any of the advanced industrialized countries of Europe and Asia, its main competitors in the world market. It ranks with some of the most impoverished underdeveloped countries, slightly more unequal than Cameroon and Ivory Cost, less unequal than Uganda.
Link to complete article: http://www.opednews.com/articles/The-Land-of-Unlimited-Ineq-by-Patrick-Martin-110623-220.htmlEvidence of American exceptionalism?
(American exceptionalism refers to the theory that the United States is qualitatively different from other nations. In this view, America's exceptionalism stems from its emergence from a revolution, becoming "the first new nation",<1> and developing a uniquely American ideology, based on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, populism and laissez-faire.)