Published on Oxfam America’s Politics of Poverty blog
Economic growth—the kind America enjoyed during its longest decades of prosperity —does not happen in countries with chronic income inequality.
As the President works to put the American economy back on track in his second term, I think the mandate of the election is clear, if Obama will listen.
Among developed countries, the United States has the highest levels of inequality. This is an unsettling trend that has worsened over the past three decades. As we know, chronic inequality is bad for growth and threatens macroeconomic stability. Societies with high income inequality also suffer from greater health and social ills (including crime, sickness, violence, shorter life spans, & stress) than more equal ones. Continue reading