12.05.2018, New York.
The social gap is growing, deep research of worsening sentiments among ordinary US citizens is necessary, reads an analytical article published by Bloomberg on May 9.
The author of the article Noah Smith thinks that “Middle-class doldrums don’t add up to a crisis”. There are two possible reasons for falling median real person income in the USA. The first is seen in the general trend of slowing labor productivity growth since the early 1970s. The second is much increased redistribution of the results of economic activity in favor of high status managers and wealthy people.
Having analyzed the statistics of real wages adjusted for inflation, Smith stresses that real wages of production and nonsupervisory workers haven’t yet climbed back to the former heights of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Moreover, this index with its serious falling even in the good economic times of 1990s shows that capitalism has an internal systemic failing.
The article provides statistics showing a notable decline in workforce demand compared to the late ‘90s and an increase in income from nonwage sources. The article also shows a constant growth of real median earnings of a family, part of which is being eaten away by inflation. All these factors together do not help to alleviate the situation and continue to contribute to the deteriorating sentiments among ordinary normal US citizens.
Summarizing his analysis, Smith concludes with a phenomenon of growing earnings of a few individuals as labor productivity has stagnated and earnings of ordinary US citizens has grown slowly. This situation develops negative public sentiment. Consequently, improvements in this area become a top priority for the contemporary US society, and current situation requires a more careful investigation of its root causes.
Oxfam International monitoring social and economic inequality publishes regular reports on its studies. The report of this organization shows that wealth accumulated by a few super-rich individuals is enough to end extreme global poverty seven times over.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
