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Income Inequality Media Articles
Excerpts of Key Income Inequality Media Articles in Major Media


Below are key excerpts of revealing news articles on income inequality from reliable news media sources. If any link fails to function, a paywall blocks full access, or the article is no longer available, try these digital tools.


Note: Explore our full index to key excerpts of revealing major media news articles on several dozen engaging topics. And don't miss amazing excerpts from 20 of the most revealing news articles ever published.


Robert Reich on the ‘Vicious Cycle of Wealth and Power’ He Says Threatens Capitalism
2016-01-11, Wall Street Journal
http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2016/01/11/qa-robert-reich-on-the-vicious-cycl...

Robert Reich, former secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton and a professor of public policy at University of California, Berkeley, spent years warning of twin demons: Technology and globalization. Machines displaced ... workers whose routine jobs could be automated, and globalization meant the flight of manufacturing and service jobs to factories and call centers in emerging countries. The result was ever-widening inequality. In his latest book, “Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few,” he’s changed his tune. While those two factors still play a role in growing inequality, he cites a new culprit: “the increasing concentration of political power in a corporate and financial elite that has been able to influence the rules by which the economy runs.” [Reich explains], "Capitalism is based on trust. It’s impossible to have a system that works well and is based on billions of transactions if people don’t trust that others are going to fulfill their obligations, or they fear someone will take advantage of them or exploit them. That’s when a system moves from production to protection. Economists have been documenting inequality using various measures, but I haven’t seen much documentation of this issue of power. Political scientists and economists are [reluctant] to get into this field. Economists look at market power and monopolies, but the other areas I’ve talked about - this vicious cycle of compounded wealth and power that changes the rules of the game - economists are really not taking it on."

Note: Read how the market is rigged to grow inequality in this summary of a Robert Reich essay that recently appeared in Newsweek. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing income inequality news articles from reliable major media sources.


For the Wealthiest, a Private Tax System That Saves Them Billions
2015-12-29, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/30/business/economy/for-the-wealthiest-private...

The very richest Americans have financed a sophisticated and astonishingly effective apparatus for shielding their fortunes. Some call it the “income defense industry,” consisting of a high-priced phalanx of lawyers, estate planners, lobbyists and anti-tax activists. All are among a small group providing much of the early cash for the 2016 presidential campaign. Operating largely out of public view - in tax court, through arcane legislative provisions and in private negotiations with the Internal Revenue Service - the wealthy have used their influence to steadily whittle away at the government’s ability to tax them. The effect has been to create a kind of private tax system, catering to only several thousand Americans. Two decades ago ... the 400 highest-earning taxpayers in America paid nearly 27 percent of their income in federal taxes, according to I.R.S. data. By 2012 ... that figure had fallen to less than 17 percent, which is just slightly more than the typical family making $100,000 annually. Some of the biggest current tax battles are being waged by some of the most generous supporters of 2016 candidates. Whatever tax rates Congress sets, the actual rates paid by the ultra-wealthy tend to fall over time as they exploit their numerous advantages.

Note: The IRS now conducts only half as many audits of the super-rich as it did five years ago. Over half of the money contributed so far to 2016 US presidential candidates has come from just 158 families. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and income inequality from reliable major media sources.


The 158 Families Who Are Buying American Democracy
2015-12-11, Newsweek
http://www.newsweek.com/158-families-who-are-buying-american-democracy-403807

Half of all the money contributed so far to Democratic and Republican presidential candidates - $176 million - has come from just 158 families, along with the companies they own or control. Who are these people? According to the report, most of these big contributors live in exclusive neighborhoods where they have private security guards instead of public police officers, private health facilities rather than public parks and pools. Most send their kids and grand kids to elite private schools rather than public schools. They fly in private jets and get driven in private limousines rather than rely on public transportation. They don't have to worry about whether Social Security or Medicare will be there for them in their retirement because they've put away huge fortunes. It's doubtful that most of these 158 are contributing to these campaigns out of the goodness of their hearts. They're largely making investments, just the way they make other investments. And the success of these investments depends on whether their candidates get elected, and will lower their taxes even further, expand tax loopholes, shred health and safety and environmental regulations so their companies can make even more money, and cut Social Security and Medicare and programs for the poor - and thereby allow these 158 and others like them to secede even more from the rest of our society. These people are, after all, are living in their own separate society. They want to elect people who will represent them, not the rest of us.

Note: As the Democrats and Republicans duke it out, the ultra-rich laugh all the way to the bank. What if instead of fighting each other, we worked together to expose the manipulations of the ultra-rich? This essay was written by former US Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing income inequality news articles from reliable major media sources.


Watchdog: IRS should spend less time auditing rich, more time on super-rich
2015-11-20, USA Today
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2015/11/20/watchdog-irs-should-sp...

Every hour spent auditing a taxpayer with more than $5 million in income nets the government $4,545, the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration found in a report released Friday. Auditing taxpayers in the $200,000 to $399,999 income bracket was less fruitful, generating just $605 in revenue per audit-hour. And yet the IRS spent more than four times as many hours examining taxpayers in the $200,000 to $399,999 income bracket than the $5 million-plus. That's especially important as congressional budget cuts have forced the IRS to pare back its taxpayer audits. The percentage of individual taxpayers audited each year has reached the lowest point in a decade, and is now just 0.84%. The highest-income taxpayers have seen the biggest decline in audit rates. In 2011, 30% of tax returns from taxpayers making more than $10 million got a second look by the IRS. In 2014, it was just 16%. The IRS already gives special attention to tax returns with an income above $200,000. But the inspector general recommends that the IRS increase that threshold. The agency will consider changing those thresholds, said Douglas O'Donnell, the commissioner of the IRS's Large Business and International Division. But he also said the IRS does not target groups of taxpayers based just on how much revenue an audit will generate.

Note: In the US in recent years, the super-rich have been taxed less and less while companies like General Electric sometimes pay no taxes at all. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on income inequality and government corruption news articles.


The Steady Trickle-Up From the Poor to the Rich
2015-11-02, Newsweek
http://www.newsweek.com/steady-trickle-poor-rich-389762

Much of the national debate about widening inequality ... ignores the upward redistributions going on every day, from the rest of us to the rich. These redistributions are hidden inside the market. The only way to stop them is to prevent big corporations and Wall Street banks from rigging the market. For example, Americans pay more for pharmaceuticals than do the citizens of any other developed nation. This costs you and me an estimated $3.5 billion a year - a hidden upward redistribution of our incomes to Pfizer, Merck and other big proprietary drug companies. Likewise, the interest we pay on ... loans is higher than it would be if the big banks ... had to work harder to get our business. As recently as 2000, America’s five largest banks held 25 percent of all U.S. banking assets. Now they hold 44 percent — which gives them a lock on many such loans. The net result: another hidden upward redistribution. Why have food prices been rising faster than inflation, while crop prices are now at a six-year low? Because the giant corporations that process food have the power to raise prices. Result: a redistribution from average consumers to Big Agriculture. Why do you suppose health insurance is costing us more? Health insurers are hiking rates 20 to 40 percent next year, and their stock values are skyrocketing. Add it up - the extra money we’re paying for pharmaceuticals, Internet communications, home mortgages, student loans, airline tickets, food and health insurance - and you get a hefty portion of the average family’s budget.

Note: This essay was written by former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing income inequality news articles from reliable major media sources.


Top 1 Percent Owns Half Of All Global Wealth, Per Credit Suisse Report
2015-10-13, International Business Times
http://www.ibtimes.com/top-1-percent-owns-half-all-global-wealth-credit-suiss...

In the past year, global wealth reversed a steady upward climb and fell by $12.4 trillion, largely due to currency fluctuations. But worldwide wealth inequality continued its upward march: The top 1 percent of households “account for half of all assets in the world,” according to the 2015 Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report. That’s a first since the Swiss bank began compiling the data in 2000, and a level “possibly not seen for almost a century,” the researchers write. For those on the other end of the wealth spectrum, meanwhile, the numbers are reversed. The poorest half of the world’s population owns just 1 percent of its assets. Financial assets have seen a 6 percent rise in the share of total wealth since 2008, benefiting the wealthy, who hold a disproportionate amount of capital. The overall rise in global wealth continued to be driven in large part by China and the emerging markets, which have doubled their aggregate wealth since 2000. China, whose wealth has grown fivefold since the beginning of the century, was shaken by market turmoil in the middle of the year but still managed to add $1.5 trillion in wealth. In 2015, a household net worth of $759,000 will put you in the ranks of the global one-percenters. The cutoff for the top 10 percent stood at $68,800.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing income inequality news articles from reliable major media sources.


Native Lives Matter, Too
2015-10-13, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/13/opinion/native-lives-matter-too.html?_r=0

American Indians are more likely than any other racial group to be killed by the police, according to the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, which studied police killings from 1999 to 2011. But apart from media outlets like Indian Country Today, almost no attention is paid to this pattern of violence against already devastated peoples. When it comes to American Indians, mainstream America suffers from willful blindness. Economic and health statistics, as well as police-violence statistics, shed light on the pressures on American Indian communities and individuals: Indian youths have the highest suicide rate of any United States ethnic group. Adolescent women have suicide rates four times the rate of white women in the same age group. Indians suffer from an infant mortality rate 60 percent higher than that of Caucasians. At the root of much of this is economic inequality: Indians are the poorest people in the United States. Today’s avoidable tragedies of oppressed Indian lives and troubled deaths remain far too often in the shadows. At this moment, when black Americans are speaking up against systemic police violence, and their message is finally being carried by virtually every major news source, it’s time we also pay attention to a less visible but similarly targeted minority: the people who lived here for many thousands of years before this country was founded, and who also have an unalienable right to respect and justice.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on civil liberties and income inequality from reliable major media sources.


Just 158 families have provided nearly half of the early money for efforts to capture the White House
2015-10-10, New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/10/11/us/politics/2016-presidential-e...

They are deploying their vast wealth in the political arena, providing almost half of all the seed money raised to support Democratic and Republican presidential candidates. Just 158 families, along with companies they own or control, contributed $176 million in the first phase of the campaign, a New York Times investigation found. Not since before Watergate have so few people and businesses provided so much early money in a campaign, most of it through channels legalized by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision five years ago. The 158 families each contributed $250,000 or more in the campaign through June 30. An additional 200 families gave more than $100,000. Together, the two groups contributed well over half the money in the presidential election - the vast majority of it supporting Republicans. “The campaign finance system is now a countervailing force to the way the actual voters of the country are evolving and the policies they want,” said Ruy Teixeira, a political and demographic expert. The donor families’ wealth reflects, in part, the vast growth of the financial-services sector and the boom in oil and gas. They are also the beneficiaries of political and economic forces that are driving widening inequality. Together, the [energy and finance] industries accounted for well over half of the cash contributed by the top 158 families.

Note: What does it mean for democracy when billionaire oligarchs have their own political party? For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing elections news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Elections Information Center.


Mickey Mouse protection, the TPP and why America remains unequal
2015-10-07, CBC (Canada's public broadcasting system)
http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/robert-reich-saving-capitalism-tpp-1.3256940

According to a new book called Saving Capitalism ... rather than rescuing capitalism, the newly announced Trans-Pacific Partnership deal may simply perpetuate the problems identified by the book's author ... former U.S. labour secretary Robert Reich. From the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, which shields the firearms industry from lawsuits by bereft family members, to laws that let companies charge high rates for slow internet, Reich offers a depressing litany of rules made by governments for the sole purpose of protecting rich corporations at the expense of the American public. "Contrary to the conventional view of an American economy bubbling with innovative small companies, the reality is quite different," Reich writes. In left-leaning circles, the conventional view is that creating equality requires redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor. Reich says the real problem is something he calls "pre-distribution." By lobbying for laws such as those that make life-saving pharmaceuticals expensive and technological patents unbreakable, large corporations and their teams of lawyers rig the game in their favour long before the issue of redistribution arises. Drug companies are rewarded not for inventing drugs but for extending the exclusivity of existing drugs. (The TPP does exactly that.) Companies like Google, Amazon and Apple capture the value of patents and then are rewarded for "strategic litigation" to prevent anyone else from using them.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about government corruption and income inequality from reliable major media sources.


The Real Reason for the Growing Gap Between Rich and Poor
2015-09-28, Newsweek
http://www.newsweek.com/real-reason-growing-gap-between-rich-and-poor-377662

You often hear inequality has widened because globalization and technological change have made most people less competitive, while making the best educated more competitive. There’s some truth to this. The tasks most people used to do can now be done more cheaply by lower-paid workers abroad or by computer-driven machines. But this common explanation overlooks ... the increasing concentration of political power in a corporate and financial elite that has been able to influence the rules by which the economy runs. As I argue in my new book, Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few, this transformation has ... resulted in higher corporate profits, higher returns for shareholders and higher pay for top corporate executives and Wall Street bankers – and lower pay and higher prices for most other Americans. [These changes] amount to a giant pre-distribution upward to the rich. The underlying problem ... is that the market itself has become tilted ever more in the direction of moneyed interests that have exerted disproportionate influence over it, while average workers have steadily lost bargaining power. The most important political competition over the next decades will not be between the right and left, or between Republicans and Democrats. It will be between a majority of Americans who have been losing ground, and an economic elite that refuses to recognize or respond to its growing distress.

Note: This essay was written by former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing income inequality news articles from reliable major media sources.


Pope Francis’s Philadelphia prison visit highlights crisis in US justice system
2015-09-21, The Guardian (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/sep/21/pope-francis-philadelphia-pris...

Pope Francis will meet more than 100 men and women from a dangerously overcrowded prison population. Some 80% of those inmates at that prison, [Philadelphia's] Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility (CFCF), have not yet been convicted of the crime with which they were charged. Most of them are behind bars because they have not paid or cannot afford to pay bail while awaiting trial. Francis has visited prisons in multiple countries. This particular prison ... presents an extreme microcosm of two of the most pressing national prison problems: pretrial detention and overcrowding. The prison system – particularly in holding those who cannot afford to pay bail – targets the very people Pope Francis has shown the most concern for: the poor. With 2.2 million people incarcerated mostly in state prisons and jails like Philadelphia’s, the US now ... spends about $80bn on prisons. At any given time, between 400,000 to 500,000 of those people [are] held in pretrial or midtrial detention, sometimes for weeks, months and even years, usually because they cannot afford to pay bail. The Justice Department estimates that two-thirds of those inmates are non-dangerous defendants.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about income inequality and systemic prison industry corruption.


A Canadian manifesto for the planet and one another
2015-09-15, The Globe and Mail (One of Canada's leading newspapers)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/globe-debate/a-canadian-manifesto-for-the-plan...

We could live in a country powered entirely by renewable energy, woven together by accessible public transit. Caring for one another and caring for the planet could be the economy’s fastest growing sectors. Many more people could have higher-wage jobs with fewer work hours. Canada is not this place today – but it can be. Climate scientists have told us this is the decade to take decisive action to prevent catastrophic global warming. That means small steps will no longer suffice. So we need to leap. There is no longer an excuse for building new infrastructure projects that lock us into increased extraction decades into the future. That applies equally to oil and gas pipelines; fracking in New Brunswick, Quebec and British Columbia; increased tanker traffic off our coasts; and to Canadian-owned mining projects the world over. Since this leap is beginning late, we need to invest in our decaying public infrastructure so it can withstand increasingly frequent extreme weather events. Moving to a far more localized and ecologically based agricultural system would reduce reliance on fossil fuels, capture carbon in the soil and absorb sudden shocks in the global supply – as well as produce healthier and more affordable food for everyone. “Austerity” – which has systematically attacked low-carbon sectors such as education and health care – is a fossilized form of thinking that has become a threat. One thing is clear: Public scarcity in times of unprecedented private wealth is a manufactured crisis, designed to extinguish our dreams.

Note: The esteemed authors of this essay are Naomi Klein, David Suzuki, Leonard Cohen, Donald Sutherland and Ellen Page. For more, read the complete essay, and see concise summaries of deeply revealing global warming news articles from reliable major media sources.


Leftist Jeremy Corbyn elected leader of Britain’s Labour Party
2015-09-12, Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/leftist-jeremy-corbyn-elected-leader-of-...

Jeremy Corbyn’s stunning transformation from perennial leftist rebel to leader of Britain’s Labour Party upended British politics Saturday. The Corbyn victory represented an extraordinary rebuke to Labour’s more centrist powers-that-be, especially to former prime minister Tony Blair, who had campaigned vigorously against Corbyn. But interventions from Blair and other party heavyweights apparently did little to halt Corbyn’s momentum and may have even backfired. In a fiery victory speech, Corbyn vowed to combat society’s “grotesque inequality” and make Britain a more humane country. Corbyn has often bucked the Labour leadership on critical issues — including the vote to authorize the Iraq war — and his message resonated among Labour voters who believe their party has been reduced to a pale imitation of the Tories, especially as it lurched to the center under Blair. He has previously called for Britain to leave NATO, favors unilateral nuclear disarmament and champions the nationalization of vast sectors of the economy. He has also said that he will apologize on behalf of Labour for the Iraq invasion and that Blair could face war-crimes charges. In Britain ... voters on both ends of the spectrum are looking for alternatives to the traditional power-brokers. “This isn’t just a leftist phenomenon. It’s a populist phenomenon,” [Queen Mary University professor Tim] Bale said. “It’s the idea that voters are fed up with politics as usual and an elite that’s compromised.”

Note: Former prime minister Tony Blair was reported to have personally made millions from warmongering, and was convicted in a symbolic Malaysian trial of “crimes against peace” in Iraq. Will Corbyn actually attempt to bring formal charges against Blair in the U.K.?


These Former Debt Collectors Decided to Ditch the Industry, Buy Up Medical Debt, and Forgive It
2015-08-17, Yes! Magazine
http://www.yesmagazine.org/new-economy/these-former-debt-collectors-decided-t...

When Paola Gonzalez received a phone call from RIP Medical Debt, she was certain what she heard was a mistake. A prank, maybe. The caller said a $950 hospital bill had been paid for in full. She wouldn’t have to worry about it again. “They wanted to pay a bill for me,” she said. “I was just speechless.” The 24-year-old student ... has lupus, a chronic autoimmune disease. “I can’t always work,” Gonzalez said. “I’ll be fine today and sick tomorrow. It’s really amazing that people would help out like this.” Gonzalez is one of many people who have had a debt paid by RIP Medical Debt, a nonprofit founded by two former debt collectors, Jerry Ashton and Craig Antico, that buys debt on the open market and then abolishes it, no strings attached. In [its first] year, the group has abolished just under $400,000. On July 4, it launched a year-long campaign to ... abolish $17.6 million of other people’s debt. It works like this: typical collection agencies will buy debts from private practices, hospitals, and other collection agencies. The buyers often [purchase] a debt for pennies on the dollar while charging the debtor the full amount, plus additional fees. Antico and Ashton are plugged into the same marketplace. They buy the debt for around one percent of the amount it's worth. Then, they forgive it. Ashton worked in the debt collections business for more than 30 years. The industry treated debts as “commodities” and sold them for a profit while the debtor struggled to pay off the full amount. “That I find to be unconscionable,” says Ashton.

Note: Ashton was inspired to rethink debt by Rolling Jubilee, a program that came out of the Occupy Wall Street movement which similarly abolishes student loan debt.


The Outrageous Ascent of CEO Pay
2015-08-09, Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/the-outrageous-ascent-of-_b_796336...

The Securities and Exchange Commission just ruled that large publicly held corporations must disclose the ratios of the pay of their top CEOs to the pay of their median workers. About time. In 1965, CEOs of America's largest corporations were paid, on average, 20 times the pay of average workers. Now, the ratio is over 300 to 1. It turns out the higher the CEO pay, the worse the firm does. Professor Michael J. Cooper of the University of Utah [and colleagues] recently found that companies with the highest-paid CEOs returned about 10 percent less to their shareholders than do their industry peers. So why aren't shareholders hollering about CEO pay? Because corporate law in the United States gives shareholders at most an advisory role. They can holler all they want, but CEOs don't have to listen. Larry Ellison, the CEO of Oracle, received a pay package in 2013 valued at $78.4 million, a sum so stunning that Oracle shareholders rejected it. That made no difference because Ellison controlled the board. In Australia, by contrast, shareholders have the right to force an entire corporate board to stand for re-election if 25 percent or more of a company's shareholders vote against a CEO pay plan two years in a row. Which is why Australian CEOs are paid an average of only 70 times the pay of the typical Australian worker. The new SEC rule requiring disclosure of pay ratios ... isn't perfect. Some corporations could try to game it. But the rule marks an important start.

Note: The above article was written by former U.S. Secretary of Labor Robert Reich. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing income inequality news articles from reliable major media sources.


Yes, rich truly do get richer
2015-08-08, The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, California's leading newspaper)
http://www.sacbee.com/opinion/california-forum/article30201339.html

At first glance, it looks as if Americans’ incomes grew robustly in the years 2003 through 2012. Total income reported on tax returns, adjusted for inflation, rose almost 18 percent. So why do so many Americans report economic distress? Here are some eye-popping facts ... distilled from a new government report on tax returns filed in 2003 and 2012: Just 1,361 households enjoyed 8.5 percent of the total increase. During the years 2003-2012, the income of those 1,361 households rose from an average of $86 million to $161 million, per income tax filer, per year. As their income increased, their income tax burden fell by 3 cents on the dollar to 17.6 percent of their income. The top 1 percent, or 1.36 million taxpayers, enjoyed more than half of all the increased income in America. Average income declined for 95 percent of households. Think about how vast America is, from Key West, Fla., to Nome, Alaska, from Maine to Hawaii. Most people would never have heard of a town with just 1,361 households, a speck too small for most maps. And yet an economic community that size enjoyed a much thicker slice of the national income pie, while the vast majority of people had to get by on a smaller slice of income pie. While politicians and pundits talk in vagaries about ideology and politics, our Congress slowly but steadily builds an economic, legal and tax structure that takes from the many to benefit the few.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing income inequality news articles from reliable major media sources.


Chapwood Index Proves Rising Taxes Main Culprit for Cost of Living Increase of 9.9% Across the United States
2015-08-07, Yahoo! News
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/chapwood-index-proves-rising-taxes-100000218.html

The cost of living increased an average of 9.9 percent across the top 50 major cities in the U.S. between July 1, 2014, and June 30, 2015, according to the Chapwood Index. The Index ... is a more precise measure of the cost of living than the government's Consumer Price Index (CPI), which showed a cost-of-living increase of less than 1 percent over the same time span. The 9.9 percent increase exposes why middle-class Americans - salaried workers who are given routine pay raises and retirees who depend on annual increases in their corporate pensions and Social Security payments - cannot maintain their standard of living. The Chapwood Index shows what the CPI tries to conceal: that the government keeps the CPI low to avoid spiraling debt increases, which are due primarily to corporate, income, sales and other tax increases at the local, state and federal levels, as well as rising insurance costs. For more than a century, the CPI has purported to reflect the fluctuation in prices for a typical "basket of goods" in American cities. But it hasn't really done that for more than 30 years, and since salary and benefit increases are pegged to the CPI, the middle class has seen its purchasing power decline dramatically over the last three decades. And this trend will continue as long as pay raises and benefit increases are tied to a false CPI, [Chapwood Index founder Ed] Butowsky says. "The CPI ... has been manipulated to show a lower cost of living increase in order to reduce government outlays," he says.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles on government corruption and income inequality.


Mass Incarceration Is Destroying America
2015-07-21, Time Magazine
http://time.com/3965245/john-legend-mass-incarceration/

America ... is indecently over-incarcerated. We lock up far more people per capita than any nation even close to our size: roughly 2.4 million men, women, and children. The financial toll of mass incarceration is irresponsible; the human toll is unconscionable. Just 40 years ago, our incarceration rates were much lower, and on par with our peer nations. Since then, however, our prison population has ballooned by about 700%. What happened? We launched the so-called War on Drugs. Criminalizing drug abuse only further shatters people and families that are already in pieces. Our criminal-justice system ... takes people whom we have failed since birth — subjecting them to substandard food, poor living conditions, failing schools, unsafe communities — and then tries to “correct” them through inhumane, over-punitive treatment. For four decades, we have embraced the lie that incarceration ... protects us. Mass incarceration does not make us safer; it makes us more vulnerable. It destroys communities, wastes resources, separates families, ruins lives. It is the result of policies that criminalize poverty and make prisons and jails become warehouses for deeply damaged people with little or no access to mental health or substance abuse treatment. Instead, let’s invest those resources in our neighbors and family members so they don’t end up in the system to begin with, and if they do, so they can get back on their feet.

Note: What is not mentioned here is the role of the greedy prison-industrial complex which has privatized prisons and made imprisoning people profitable. For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing news articles about the corrupt prison industry built upon by systematic violations of civil rights.


How Elizabeth Warren’s Populist Fury is Remaking Democratic Politics
2015-07-09, Time
http://time.com/3951176/up-with-people/?iid=toc_070915

President Obama has spent the summer at war with his own party over how to write the rules of global trade. Not since Woodrow Wilson promised to break the “money monopoly” ... has the Democratic Party found itself so inflamed against the intersection of wealth and power. The giants of the party now find their credentials, and motivations, under attack. The new fire is fueled by a shift in economics that feels like a crisis for many Americans. Real wages have increased 138% for the top 1% of American income earners since 1979, but only 15% for the 90% below. From 2002 to 2013, the only groups of American households that did not see their real incomes on average decline or stagnate were headed by college graduates and young people in their 20s. At the same time, over a quarter-century, fixed costs such as housing, education and health care have outpaced inflation. [Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s] message ... is that both Republicans and Democrats have misread the economic challenge and been co-opted by the forces of greed. “The pressure on the middle class is not simply a natural force,” she says. “It is the result of deliberate decisions made by the leaders of this country.” America’s enemy, in other words, lurks within. “This is not a top-vs.-bottom story,” she continues. “This is a top-and-everyone-else story. This is a 90-10 story.” Two-thirds of Americans now believe that wealth should be more evenly distributed. An even greater share of the country supports raising taxes on those who make more than $1 million.

Note: For more along these lines, see concise summaries of deeply revealing income inequality news articles from reliable major media sources. Then explore the excellent, reliable resources provided in our Elections Information Center.


Dutch city of Utrecht to experiment with a universal, unconditional 'basic income'
2015-06-26, The Independent (One of the UK's leading newspapers)
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/dutch-city-of-utrecht-to-exper...

The Dutch city of Utrecht ... has paired up with the local university to establish whether the concept of 'basic income' can work in real life, and plans to begin the experiment at the end of the summer holidays. Basic income is a universal, unconditional form of payment to individuals, which covers their living costs. The concept is to allow people to choose to work more flexible hours in a less regimented society, allowing more time for care, volunteering and study. University College Utrecht has paired with the city to place people on welfare on a living income, to see if a system of welfare without requirements will be successful. The Netherlands as a country is no stranger to less traditional work environments - it has the highest proportion of part time workers in the EU, 46.1 per cent. However, Utrecht's experiment with welfare is expected to be the first of its kind in the country. Alderman for Work and Income Victor Everhardt: "One group ... will have compensation and consideration for an allowance, another group with a basic income without rules and of course a control group which adhere to the current rules. Our data shows that less than 1.5 percent abuse the welfare. What happens if someone gets a monthly amount without rules and controls? Will someone sitting passively at home or do people develop themselves and provide a meaningful contribution to our society?"

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