The Rich Get Richer — but Are the Poor Poorer?

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here’s no question the gap between America’s rich and poor is getting wider. Sounds like a cliché, but that’s a reality supported by facts and statistics. The real question is whether the poor are becoming worse off, not just relatively speaking but in absolute terms. And there, it depends on whom you ask.

First, some numbers. In the beginning of July, the American economy entered its 121st month in a row of economic growth. That statistic is unprecedented and sets a new record. The economy is thriving, the stock market is climbing, the economy creates more new jobs with every month. In the last ten years, the number of billionaires has more than doubled — from 267 in 2008 to 607 in 2018.

How about for folks at the other end of the economic spectrum? The Reuters news service reports that in the last decade, there has been a 40 percent increase in the number of poor people who have to rely on food stamps from the government. But if you parse the actual annual numbers from the US Department of Agriculture, you find that, yes, 16 million were added to the food stamp rolls from 2008 to 2016 — but 3.9 million came off of food stamps in the last two years, from 2016 to 2018.

According to statistics from the AFL-CIO labor union, the CEOs of major corporations on the S&P 500 earned 287 times the median income of workers in their company in the last year. In some corporations the gap between CEOs and the average worker reached 3,000 times or more. And the geographic spread of the problem also reveals an interesting conundrum: according to the US Census Bureau, income equality is worst in the progressive bastions of California, New York, Connecticut, and the District of Columbia.