Economic Future or Current Reality?

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Thu, 19 May 2005 12:36:40 -0700 (PDT)

Economic Future or Current Reality?

A steeper ladder for the have-nots

 

By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist | May 18, 2005

 

IT IS STUNNING to see the Wall Street Journal and The New York Times

simultaneously devote a series to the American class divide. The

Journal reported last Friday, ''Despite the widespread belief that the

US remains a more mobile society than Europe, economists and

sociologists say that in recent decades the typical child starting out

in poverty in continental Europe or in Canada has had a better chance

at prosperity. "

 

In an echo, the Times wrote vitually the same thing, adding that in

America, a child's economic background is a better predictor of school

performance than in Denmark, the Netherlands, or France. The best that

could be said was that class mobility in the United States is ''not as

low as in developing countries like Brazil, where escape from poverty

is so difficult that the lower class is all but frozen in place. "

 

Oh joy. This is what we have come to? Comparisons to developing countries?

 

Another odd thing about the series is that the mainstays of the

mainstream press are making a big deal out of the divide after years

in which many economists warned that our policies were plunging us

straight toward Brazil. For years, groups like the Boston-based United

for a Fair Economy and the Institute for Policy Studies sent up smoke

signals that should have been a smoking gun.

 

In 1973, the ratio of CEO pay to worker pay was 43 to 1. By 1992, it

was 145 to 1. By 1997, it was 326 to 1. By 2000, it hit a sky-high 531

to 1. The post 9/11 shakeouts and corporate scandals of recent years

on the surface narrowed the gap back to 301 to 1 in 2003. But a much

worse parallel global gap is emerging in the era of outsourcing.

United for a Fair Economy published a report last summer that found

CEOs of the top US outsourcing companies made 1,300 times more than

their computer programmers in India and 3,300 more than Indian

call-center employees.

 

Such groups say if the minimum wage kept up with the rise in CEO pay,

it would be $15.76 an hour instead of its current $5.15. Looking at it

another way, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, another often

written-off liberal think tank, published a report last month that in

the last three years, the share of US national income that goes toward

corporate profits is at its highest levels since World War II, while

the share of national income that goes to wages and salaries is at a

record low.

 

This completes a perfect storm over the last quarter century of

corporate welfare for those with the most among us and vilification

for those with the least. Americans have been seduced by simplistic

notions of rugged individualism to vote more to punish people (welfare

mothers, prison booms, and affirmative action in the 1990s, and gay

marriage in 2004) than for programs and policies that might lead to

healing the gaps (national healthcare and revamped public schools).

 

It is obvious that Americans believed that none of the inequalities

long endured by the poor (because it's all their fault, right?) would

seep into our lives. We were wrong. With suburban schools slashing

their budgets, healthcare costs rising, retirement funds in doubt, and

the next generation facing a drop in their life span from obesity and

diabetes, the nation is sliding into a dangerous place.

 

A quarter century of a ''mine, all mine " ethos continues to work for

CEOs and the upper class. The rest of America finds the ladder taller

and steepening. Much of the nation is now one catastrophic injury away

from falling into poverty. It should be a national emergency that

stratification in the richest nation in the world has us fading from

the relative mobility of Europe and sinking toward the discouragement

in developing countries.

 

It is no wonder why politicians who protect the wealthy scream ''class

warfare " every time someone talks about inequity. It is a diversion to

keep those who vote against their own interests from realizing they

are victims of friendly fire.

 

Derrick Z. Jackson's e-mail address is jackson.

© Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

 

 

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eeper_ladderfor_the_have_nots/