This essay was posted on 5/7/25.
The essay is an updated version of one that was posted on 11/27/17. The basic message of the essay is just as applicable today as it was 8 years ago. The content of this essay needed more than 300 words.
8 years ago, the US scored poorly in the socioeconomic categories of murder rate, obesity rate, and mortality rate, as well as the wealth inequality between the very rich and the very poor. Today, some of the numbers went up, and others went down, but they all remain high when compared with other developed countries. Nothing has really changed about the problem of wealth inequality.
Social epidemiologist and writer Richard Wilkinson’s comments on wealth inequality in his TED talk are still relevant today. He shows with statistical correlations of data from about 20 countries that national wealth is not a factor. Nor are GDP, population, and level of government in social programs. The one consistent factor is wealth inequality. There is a very high correlation between the level of wealth inequality and the level of social problems. Nations with higher inequality have more problems, and nations with a more equal distribution of wealth have fewer problems. The US, with a very high wealth inequality, has more problems than most nations.
Donald Trump is implementing a strategy of large tax cuts to the wealthy that are funded by a huge tariff program, big cuts in domestic welfare programs, and cuts in health programs. Most of the burden created by the tariffs and spending cuts will be carried by the middle class. Trump’s new agenda will make the richest US citizens richer, concentrate the wealth even more and, according to Wilkenson’s model, will lead to more social problems and a society that is less fulfilled and less safe.
Wilkinson made an important observation. He said that the path to more evenly distributed wealth is less important than just getting there. Japan and Denmark are two countries with more equal wealth distribution and low levels of societal problems. Denmark is more socialized than Japan, but Japan has a flatter income distribution. My conclusion: If you want a stable society, you have to pay for it. If you don’t want the government to pay, then you need to pay your workers a lot more.
Over the last 8 years, the US has chosen to debate the wealth inequality issue instead of solving it. If we continue to make wealth concentration a partisan issue, the problem will not be solved.