On the streets of New York we see immigrant workers on bicycles delivering food orders in the rain to customers who don’t even have to come out of their apartments to eat. The disparity between the affluent and those with few resources seems particularly apparent to me sometimes.
In his State of the Union address, President Barack Obama seemed to choose this topic as the theme of his re-election campaign. “We can either settle for a country where a shrinking number of people do really well, while a growing number of Americans barely get by. Or we can restore an economy where everyone gets a fair shot, everyone does their fair share, and everyone plays by the same set of rules.” He spoke of reclaiming or restoring our basic American values.
I am wondering about the demographics of the Baby Boom generation. Baby Boomers were born between 1946 and 1964. They are currently between 48 and 66 years old. This generation makes a huge bulge in the population of the country, constituting approximately 25 percent of the population, and the later generations are not as large. Do the younger generations think that the Baby Boomers took all the money and are keeping it for themselves? I must say, nothing is trickier to interpret than money statistics and financial reports.
But the point is well taken that some few individuals are amassing ever-greater amounts of money in the form of income, while the rest of us watch helplessly as prices go up. $20 used to pay for my groceries, but now I sometimes have to pay $60. We also watch helplessly as the cost of our medical insurance policies or prescription drugs rise by leaps and bounds, if we are lucky enough to have medical insurance coverage in the first place.
The oldest Baby Boomers are just now becoming entitled to Medicare and retirement through Social Security. The media bombards us constantly with stories saying that the Social Security system is running out of money … How could it be running out of money, since most of the Baby Boomers are still employed and are still paying into the system? What we hear in the media often does not make sense.
Anyway, most medical insurance in the U.S.A. is provided voluntarily by employers, and it is no secret that a person can be employed full time and still not have medical insurance.
Speaking about the haves and the have nots, the lawmakers in Washington have their own special medical insurance and therefore may be completely out of touch with how the “99 percent”—most of the people—are living. Maybe the lawmakers should try applying for Medicare and see how they like sorting through THAT pile of paperwork. After all, this is what the country expects the average senior citizen to be able to do, and most of the members of Congress ARE senior citizens.
Some Questions for Discussion:
1. Does economic inequality necessarily have an effect on democracy?
2. What does wealth inequality mean in practical terms?
3. Can economic inequality be seen and felt, or are these merely statistics?
Copyright © 2012 Barbara A. English
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