Inequality continues to grow throughout the United States, notes a recent editorial in The New York Times.A new studyshows that inequality has risen in every single state over the past four decades. There has been a basic pattern that continued through booms and recessions: The rich have gotten much richer while everyone else has seen income stagnate or decline.
From 2009 to 2013, the top one percent of the population captured over 85 percent of the total income growth. There are fewer than two million families in the top one percent. Yet these families made 26 times what the other 161 million families made.
The study listed several reasons for the inequality. These include the erosion of the minimum wage and overtime-pay standards, a decline in unionization, and cultural acceptance of excessive executive pay.