How the rich got richer

Two books and two articles, all essentially tell the same story.  How the rich in America got richer.
The two books are, the 1990 book by Kevin Phillips, The politics of the Rich and Poor, the story of the Reagan years.  The second book, the 2010 book by Hacker N. Pierson, titled Winner Take all Politics:
how Washington made the rich richer -- and turned its back on the middle class.

The first article is by Matthew Stewart published in The Atlantic magazine, June, 2018, in which Stewart writes about the top 10 percent in America, and how they created a predatory taxation system and a predatory government spending system which favored the rich.

And the last article by Derrick Jackson was published in the September 3rd, 2001 South King County Journal.

Anthony Robinson reviewed the book Winner take all politics in the March 8, 2011 Christian Century.  Robinson's review was titled, How the rich got richer.  So the following quotations are from  Winner Take all Politics:

The first quotation: "Jacob Hacker and Paul Pierson tell a story that is at once familiar and unfamiliar.  The familiar part is that over the past 30 years inequality in both wealth and income has grown dramatically in the United States."

"Since the last 1970s the wealthiest 1 percent of the nation's population has pocketed more than
35 percent of the real national income growth, which is more than the bottom 90 percent of the population combined. . . . "

The second quotation:  "The less familiar part of the narrative is about how this inequality came about.  Hacker and Pierson trace the story of a 'thirty-year war' that began, unexpectedly, in the Carter years. . . .

The third quotation:  "Rather, it was the result of government policy. . . ."

The fourth quotation:  "Since the late 1970s business and corporate interest have fought successfully for lower tax rates, especially for the most affluent; deregulation of financial markets and executive pay; and erosion of the powers of countervailing groups--labor unions chief among them. . . ."

The fifth quotation:  "The balance of their readable book tells the story of the 30-year war: the tremendous growth in conservative PACs, think tanks and advocacy groups; the huge sums of money raised to support the agenda of tax cuts; the growing radicalization of the Republican Party; and the role of the Democratic Party, which pretty much went with the cash flow, sometimes actively, sometimes passively. . . ."

The sixth quotation:  "This decline of a stable and secure middle class, which once carried the freight for civil society, is the real story of the last 30 to 40 years of the U.S. . . . ."

The seventh quotation: "Does religion figure in the story?  Hacker and Pierson's only explicit discussion of religion relates to the growing role of the Christian right, which moved evangelical Christian voters into political activism for the Republicans.  This is a crucial bloc that has voted, at least sometime, more on the basis of cultural values than economical self-interest."

I would add that white evangelicals never have had a biblical social ethic or a biblical social--economic ethic.

So neither civic institutions, nor labor unions, nor the democratic party, nor the church could withstand the political, economic power of the rich.  This all happened prior to the rise of Trump; in fact, in prepared the way for Trump's improbable success.

This next article is about justice and wages, more specifically, minimum wage and the living wage, by Lowell Noble:

These United States have an economic system that generates enormous wealth --  a ten trillion dollar economy.  Yet we have millions of poor people including many working poor and working near poor. In a wealthy nation does not every working person deserve a living wage that will provide the necessities of life for her/his family?

First some economic facts reported by Derrick Jackson in the South King County Journal, Sept 3, 2001:

          1.  "If the minimum wage had risen at the same pace of American productivity since 1968, it would be $13.80 and hour," not the current $5.15 federal minimum wage."

          2.  "If the minimum wage had risen at the same pace as domestic profits since 1958, it would be $13.02."

          3.  "If the minimum wage had risen at the same pace as profits in the retail industry, it would be $20.46.  Nearly half of all workers in the retail industry make less than $8 an hour."

          4.  "If the minimum wage had risen at the same pace as executive pay since 1990, it would be $25.50 an hour."

          5.  "If the average pay for production workers had risen at the same level as CEO pay since 1990, the annual salary would be $120,491, not $24,668."

          6.  "The wealthiest 1 percent control about 38 percent of America's wealth."  "The bottom
80 percent control 17 percent of America's wealth."

The Economic Policy Institute estimates that the average American family needs $33,551 to meet its basic needs -- a living wage.  The federal government says that a family of two adults and two children needs $17,500 a year to stay out of poverty.

60 US cities and counties have passed living wage laws to move low-wage workers out of poverty into sufficiency.  After Chicago passed its living wage law, Diane Cunningham, a home health aide, was able to purchase a house with her increased income.  Justice requires that every working person deserves a decent wage.

I urge you to only to support increases in the minimum wage, but also any effort in your city or county to require a living wage.  Workers deserve it and our economy can afford it.  In fact, providing all workers with a living wage would stimulate our economy which would be good for us all.