NYTimes: Conservative Economics and Income Inequality Are Literally Killing Us

[rogerashton]

7. Research base

The NYT article cites research supported by the National Bureau of Economic Research, an organization that sets a very high standard, and the paper is available at

http://www.nber.org/papers/w20525.pdf

Other links from the NYT article include a Brookings Institution blog that reported a simulation of the effect of increasing educational levels. Simulations are as good as their assumptions, but the report makes a good point: raising educational levels may be a good thing in many ways, but it won't have much impact on inequality, because the inequality is coming from incomes at the top.

http://www.brookings.edu/blogs/up-front/posts/2015/03/31-what-increasing-education-will-and-wont-do-for-earnings-inequality-hershbein-kearney-summers

Another link is to a paper from a Stanford education researcher. I don't have the background to judge it but it seems to be a well-known study. It is available here:

https://cepa.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/reardon%20whither%20opportunity%20-%20chapter%205.pdf

It seems that we have two problems: poverty at the bottom and growing inequality at the top. It's tempting to say that these are two sides of the same economic coin -- that "the poverty of the poor is a condition for the luxury of the rich" -- but that may not be so. Raising the standards of the poor could so increase their productivity that it would also increase the profits of the rich. But what is clear is that they are two sides of the same political coin: policies supported by the billionaire class are continually impoverishing the working class, and this is destructive of our society in many ways, ways that will eventually bring down the billionaire class itself, probably with great violence.