ROBERT REICH:If the median wage had kept up with the overall economy, it would be over $90,000 today [View all]
REFRAMING THE DEBATE: NOT THAT MOST AMERICANS HAVE BEEN LIVING BEYOND OUR MEANS, BUT OUR MEANS HAVEN’T KEPT UP BECAUSE OF WIDENING INEQUALITY.
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The notion that we can’t afford to invest in the education of our young, or rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, or continue to provide Social Security and Medicare and Medicaid, or expand health insurance is absurd.
If the median wage had kept up with the overall economy, it would be over $90,000 today — and tax revenues would be more than adequate to cover all our needs. If the wealthy were paying the same marginal tax rate they were paying up to 1981, tax revenues would be far more.
Get it? The problem isn’t that most Americans have been living too well. The problem is we haven’t been living nearly as well as our growing economy should have allowed us to live.
Widening inequality is the culprit. If President Obama is looking for a central theme for his second term, this is it.
http://robertreich.org/post/51726367160
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