Income inequality skyrocketing under right-wing rule

The Economic Policy Institute reported yesterday that income inequality is still on the rise, and growing sharper.

"The ratio of the wage income of the top 1% of earners to that of the bottom 90% more than doubled between 1979 and 2006, increasing from a ratio of 9.4-to-1 to 19.9-to-1."

By contrast the previous 3 decades (1947-1979), when labor unions had larger influence over the struggle for wages and benefits, "there was relatively little change in the earnings disparity."

But zooming in on the wealthiest sections of American society, reports EPI, "the upper one-tenth of 1% earned 70.4 times as much as the average person in the bottom 90% of the income scale." Just 30 years ago, that ratio was 21 to 1.

There is no doubt that this jump in income inequality is the result of 30 years of ultra right wing rule characterized by slashing anti-poverty programs and public education, anti-union policies, anti-minimum wage policies, free trade and outsourcing policies and the like. Time to bring it to an end.