As many Americans are painfully aware, income inequality in the United States today is extreme and growing exponentially. In fact, as of 2014, the top CEOs takes home 844 times what the average worker makes. And New Jersey is no stranger to the effects of runaway inequality, according to a recent story on WNYC, being home to some of the wealthiest and some of the poorest individuals in the country.
This extreme distribution of wealth is no accident, with extreme income disparity being more common in urban centers, and with income inequality (according to the Gini index, a frequently used measure for inequality) being lower between 2006-2010, a period immediately preceding the great recession.
“The statewide rise in New Jersey income inequality is also reflected in the data for individual counties, which all except Cape May saw upticks in their Gini index scores.”
Meanwhile, Governor Christie has worked to cut taxes and fees for corporations, plunder the state budget, and attempted to cut himself a juicy book deal.
Extreme income inequality is no accident; it occurs when economic and corporate elites work together to rig an economy against ordinary, working people. While Wall Street executives, CEOs, and corrupt politicians siphon wealth out of our state, our municipalities, and our communities, we fight over scraps at the table and often receive none.
It’s time that working people push back. It’s time we understand that extreme income inequality is not an accident, nor an inevitable market force. Extreme inequality is immoral, it is purposeful, and we must fight back against it. Learn more about our campaign to reverse inequality, Public Need Over Corporate Greed.
