Wealth and Income Inequality: America’s Moral Crisis

Less than one tenth of one percent of our population is holding a sum of wealth approaching three times the size of the US economy that is anticipated to more than double within the next decade, the earnings on which does not contribute to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. And the wealthiest in America quintupled their income during the heart of the Great Recession. To propose cuts to food stamps and unemployment benefits for the victims of the Great Recession during a time of increasing poverty and poverty-related deaths, without shared sacrifice at the top, represents nothing less than a moral crisis for our country.

...

Warren Buffet, the second wealthiest individual in America behind Bill Gates (ref), has advocated over the past several years to raise taxes on the wealthiest of Americans. Using himself as an example, he paid 17.4% on his taxable income last year (around $40 million), a lower level than any of the other 20 individuals in his office (range 33% to 41%, average 36%). The reason for this is that the “mega-rich pay income taxes at a rate of 15 percent on most of the earnings but pay practically nothing in payroll taxes. It’s a different story for the middle class; typically they fall into the 15% and 25% income brackets, and then are hit with heavy payroll taxes to boot” (ref).

...

Mr. Buffett is right when he said in 2006: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning”

...

Retaining Tax Benefits for the Wealthiest While Cutting Safety Nets: A Few Other Statistics (ref)
•The richest 400 Americans hold more wealth than 154 million Americans, half the US population. They paid 30% of their income in taxes in 1995, but only 18% now.
•The average millionaire saves $136,000/year due to reduced taxes, a sum greater than the highest income level in the lower 80% of America (and, by definition, there are no taxes paid on those savings).
•One percent of America holds 40% of this country’s wealth, more than the lower 90% of America combined, and holds almost half of all investment assets that produce income at lower tax rates without payroll taxes that contribute to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
•Between 1975-2010, income of the top 0.1% of income earners quadrupled and for the top 0.01% quintupled. During this same time period worker productivity increased 80%, and yet the income shift has resulted in a shortfall of $400/week for the typical American family.
•From 2009 – Q4 2010, 88% of income growth went to corporate profits (i.e. CEOs) while just 1% went to workers.


http://www.artonissues.com/2011/08/income-and-wealth-inequality-americas-moral-crisis/

There's a lot of good charts and graphs and many other well reasoned arguments in the article.

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One argument that we often hear from the right is that of equality of opportunity vs. equality of outcome. I think that this is a false choice. No one wants to take all the money away from wealthy people and spread it out so that everyone makes the same amount of money. What we are talking about is maintaining a society where a child from a lower income home has the opportunity to get a quality education and secure a stable life for themselves. As it is right now a child is much better off being born into a wealthy family that can afford a prestigious primary and secondary education than a child is being born smart and ambitious to a poor family. This is more of an aristocracy than a meritocracy. All I want is to see a country where an individual can reasonably expect to house and feed themselves and their families with hard work and effort. When %1 of the population owns %50 of the wealth education and infrastructure for the rest suffers.

Less than one tenth of one percent of our population is holding a sum of wealth approaching three times the size of the US economy that is anticipated to more than double within the next decade, the earnings on which does not contribute to Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security. And the wealthiest in America quintupled their income during the heart of the Great Recession. To propose cuts to food stamps and unemployment benefits for the victims of the Great Recession during a time of increasing poverty and poverty-related deaths, without shared sacrifice at the top, represents nothing less than a moral crisis for our country.

...

Warren Buffet, the second wealthiest individual in America behind Bill Gates (ref), has advocated over the past several years to raise taxes on the wealthiest of Americans. Using himself as an example, he paid 17.4% on his taxable income last year (around $40 million), a lower level than any of the other 20 individuals in his office (range 33% to 41%, average 36%). The reason for this is that the “mega-rich pay income taxes at a rate of 15 percent on most of the earnings but pay practically nothing in payroll taxes. It’s a different story for the middle class; typically they fall into the 15% and 25% income brackets, and then are hit with heavy payroll taxes to boot” (ref).

...

Mr. Buffett is right when he said in 2006: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning”

...

Retaining Tax Benefits for the Wealthiest While Cutting Safety Nets: A Few Other Statistics (ref)
•The richest 400 Americans hold more wealth than 154 million Americans, half the US population. They paid 30% of their income in taxes in 1995, but only 18% now.
•The average millionaire saves $136,000/year due to reduced taxes, a sum greater than the highest income level in the lower 80% of America (and, by definition, there are no taxes paid on those savings).
•One percent of America holds 40% of this country’s wealth, more than the lower 90% of America combined, and holds almost half of all investment assets that produce income at lower tax rates without payroll taxes that contribute to Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.
•Between 1975-2010, income of the top 0.1% of income earners quadrupled and for the top 0.01% quintupled. During this same time period worker productivity increased 80%, and yet the income shift has resulted in a shortfall of $400/week for the typical American family.
•From 2009 – Q4 2010, 88% of income growth went to corporate profits (i.e. CEOs) while just 1% went to workers.


http://www.artonissues.com/2011/08/income-and-wealth-inequality-americas-moral-crisis/

There's a lot of good charts and graphs and many other well reasoned arguments in the article.

---

One argument that we often hear from the right is that of equality of opportunity vs. equality of outcome. I think that this is a false choice. No one wants to take all the money away from wealthy people and spread it out so that everyone makes the same amount of money. What we are talking about is maintaining a society where a child from a lower income home has the opportunity to get a quality education and secure a stable life for themselves. As it is right now a child is much better off being born into a wealthy family that can afford a prestigious primary and secondary education than a child is being born smart and ambitious to a poor family. This is more of an aristocracy than a meritocracy. All I want is to see a country where an individual can reasonably expect to house and feed themselves and their families with hard work and effort. When %1 of the population owns %50 of the wealth education and infrastructure for the rest suffers.

person said:

No one wants to take all the money away from wealthy people and spread it out so that everyone makes the same amount of money. What we are talking about is maintaining a society where a child from a lower income home has the opportunity to get a quality education and secure a stable life for themselves. As it is right now a child is much better off being born into a wealthy family that can afford a prestigious primary and secondary education than a child is being born smart and ambitious to a poor family. This is more of an aristocracy than a meritocracy. All I want is to see a country where an individual can reasonably expect to house and feed themselves and their families with hard work and effort. When %1 of the population owns %50 of the wealth education and infrastructure for the rest suffers.

It has always been the case in the US that the wealthy has better access to prestigious schools... they also have larger houses and nice cars, a perk of being financially successful. Everyone still has opportunities for an education though, but I think what has changed is the willingness to work for it. Mexicans are still crossing the border to come here and take the jobs Americans are unwilling to take, and getting an education for themselves and/or to help their children get the education, while the ungrateful US kids are joining the OWS protests in an effort to not have to pay back their student loans.

I remember viewing an Adam Carolla rant on utube where he blamed all this on the movement 20 years ago to give participation trophies to each kid, regardless of their capabilities or actual effort. Seems like the compassionate thing to do for a kids ego, but are we really helping prepare them to make it on their own? Adam is a bit over-the-top in his rant, but I recognize some valid points.

I'm going through this with my kids... it's a different mindset than when I was growing up.

I think I remember Mr. Buffet at some point saying that he pays hardly any property taxes on his house in the Midwest, where property taxes are low. I think he observed that he pays less taxes on a mansion in the Midwest than on an apartment in NY or the West Coast. Have you come across a quote like that, person? If so, please post it, he made a strong point about how property taxes should work, but I don't remember the details of his statement.

Dakini, that is understandable because the demand for housing is not as high in midwest. The lumber and labor and so forth don't make the cost of a house. The lumber and labor of a house near the ocean is not any higher but the price is much higher. It is reasonable that the property taxes reflect the actual value (rather than 'lumber' value) of the property in my opnion.

In a dramatic illustration of the impact of income inequality on how children do in school, the achievement gap between children from high and low income families is far higher than the achievement gap between black and white students, a pathbreaking research report from Stanford University has shown.



The report by Sean Reardon, a Stanford professor of education and sociology, shows that the income achievement gap--the difference in the average standardized scores between children from families at the 10th percentile of income distribution and children at the 90th percentile--is now "nearly twice as large as the black-white achievement gap."

...

According to Reardon, the reasons the income achievement gap has grown include the following:
•The income gap between the richest and poorest families has grown over the past 40 years;
•High income families invest more time and resources into promoting their children's "cognitive development" than lower income families;
•High income families increasingly "have greater socioeconomic and social resources that may benefit their children;"
•Income inequality has led to more residential segregation by income level rather than race, which in turns means that high income children have access to higher quality schools and other resources.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/21/income-achievement-gap-al_n_1105783.html

Some of the reason for the gap is simply due to wealthy families often being better educated and placing a higher value on education than poorer families. I agree with you @Telly03 that overpraising kids can lead to complacency and laziness.

Children from wealthy families have an advantage and maybe its always been so and maybe one could say its deserved. I don't want it to be that way though, I want the government to shape public policy so that a capable individual from a poorer family has just as much ability to succeed as one from a wealthy family. I don't think the government should do it by handicapping the well off, they should strengthen schools and programs not that give people handouts but give them help to succeed.

"Emily Beller and Michael Hout examine trends in U.S. social mobility, especially as it relates to the degree to which a person's income or occupation depends on his or her parents' background and to the independent contribution of economic growth. They also compare U.S. social mobility with that in other countries. They conclude that slower economic growth since 1975 and the concentration of that growth among the wealthy have slowed the pace of U.S. social mobility."

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17036544

Person, my thought (in reading your writing) was that welfare would work better if there could be a welfare distribution of stimulus and care and love and seeds of education instead of just a check that would come in the mail. If that were the case I think the goal of mobility would be realized.

Agree with all you wrote Person, but what can we do about it?

Jeffrey said:

Person, my thought (in reading your writing) was that welfare would work better if there could be a welfare distribution of stimulus and care and love and seeds of education instead of just a check that would come in the mail. If that were the case I think the goal of mobility would be realized.

Yes, thats how I envision the 'redistribution of wealth'. Not in the form of cash, but in the form of tools for personal empowerment such as education, shared infrastructure, access to healthcare.

ginab said:

Agree with all you wrote Person, but what can we do about it?

I feel your frustration, I think politics in the US is broken atm. The seeds of unrest have started, I personally don't think congress will change until people are even more upset than they are now.

I feel that politics moves in cycles, the conservative ideology has dominated for a while now. At first there were many good solutions to the economic stagnation and beaurocratic waste, but once those problems were solved they kept pushing the agenda and sent us off kilter. Eventually things will get bad enough and progressive politics will take hold, problems will be addressed and things will get better. These ideals will probably become entrenched and lead to more stagnation and bloat. And so on... and so on...

I think each time we learn a little more and move forward but I think it will be a while before the people of earth find that middle way. Lets hope we don't kill ourselves in the process.

@

person said:

ginab said:

Agree with all you wrote Person, but what can we do about it?

I think each time we learn a little more and move forward but I think it will be a while before the people of earth find that middle way. Lets hope we don't kill ourselves in the process.

Amen

Warren Buffet still lives in the modest home in Omaha that he purchased in the 50's.

Thanks, lama. I'll try to look up what he said about that.

http://newsbird.wordpress.com/2009/07/20/the-amazing-home-of-warren-buffett-whose-net-worth-is-over-36-billion/#more-996

interesting topic. Thanks for sharing.

lama, 6000 sq. ft. is not a "modest home". Back when he bought it, that was considered to be a luxury home. And if you look to the left in the photo, there appears to be a guest house. Or maybe it's a large garage.

But my point was that he once made a very interesting statement about how property taxes work in the US. I'm pretty sure it was a comment about how his taxes for 6000 sq. ft, (and we don't know how big the lot is, but it looks like at least a double or triple-sized lot) are much less than taxes on apartments in some parts of the country. And he was saying that's not right, he would be willing to pay more in taxes, he wants to pay his share for the common good. Something like that.

Bill Moyers has a new show and in the premiere he did one on income inequality. It was standard Bill Moyers fare if you're familiar with him. Liberal but reasoned and without the hyperbole. Here's a link to the show. Apparently the next 2 episodes are also related to income inequality.

http://billmoyers.com/episode/on-winner-take-all-politics/

In re the original post in this thread, I don't have a problem with preferring the "equality of opportunity" concept over the "equality of outcome" concept. I think back to my "work worlds". I was a middle school principal, and for a while our school system toyed with "merit pay". And there's no question that some teachers worked much harder than others, had better results with student achievement than others, and so forth. And I felt that those who "produced" the most, deserved to reap the rewards. As a principal, there were colleagues who worked harder than me and had better results. There were also colleagues who worked less than I and had inferior results. And I would have had no problem with a merit pay system for principals, realizing that I would not have been in the top tier.

But to place all of this nation's eggs in the basket of "equality of opportunity" is not fair, in my opinion. There is a certain "bounty" that -- well, partly good luck in being located where we are, the work of our ancestors, and, American history have handed down to us that ought to be shared amongst all who are Americans.

There are those who say that a reasonable standard of health care is not a "right", and I guess that's true. But, although it's a negative word these days, I would argue that a reasonable standard of health care is an "entitlement" -- something that each American deserves, based on that concept that Americans ought to share in the "bounty" of this nation.

I look at my own sister. I don't think she deserved to have a life equal to mine. She quit high school one month before she would have graduated...I worked my way through 7 years of university. Without exaggerating, I can say that she worked fewer hours in her whole life than I worked in one year. She chose to drink and take drugs. I chose to remain sober and off drugs. The quality of housing she could afford was low, but satisfactory. The quality of food she could eat was low, but satisfactory. Usually she didn't own a car, but could use public transportation. The clothes she could afford were Walmart. I always did better than she in all those categories and more. And that's fair, in my view. BUT, she deserved to share in the "bounty" of America in what I would refer to the basic elements of life -- health care being the best example.

So for me, equality of opportunity -- a valid concept. But in regard to some basic standard of life -- equality of sharing America's "bounty" ought to also be a valid concept.

person said:

In a dramatic illustration of the impact of income inequality on how children do in school, the achievement gap between children from high and low income families is far higher than the achievement gap between black and white students, a pathbreaking research report from Stanford University has shown.



...

According to Reardon, the reasons the income achievement gap has grown include the following:
•The income gap between the richest and poorest families has grown over the past 40 years;
•High income families invest more time and resources into promoting their children's "cognitive development" than lower income families;
•High income families increasingly "have greater socioeconomic and social resources that may benefit their children;"
•Income inequality has led to more residential segregation by income level rather than race, which in turns means that high income children have access to higher quality schools and other resources.

...

I lived this as principal of a middle school in northern Virginia. Our boundary included half of McLean, one of the wealthiest communities in suburban Washington, and the home of many senators and Congressmen and movers and shakers. Our boundary also included neighborhoods that were heavily minority and strictly blue collar.

I always gave our nationally award winning band teacher a lot of credit, because when receiving much deserved kudos for his work, he would often point out that he started off with the talent of mostly students who were taking private music lessons and who attended the National Symphony, etc. before he even raised his baton. And, most of the band students were White or Asian. Same with our orchestra, which was often called on to play at events where the Governor was in attendance. Our chorus didn't win many awards -- that was more the average kid who didn't have the advantages.

Our consistently award winning math team was also made up of mostly White and Asian students, many of whom received private tutoring, went to SAT prep courses, attended summer programs at universities, and so forth.

Our "everyday clubs" were attended more by the average or low income kids.

Unfortunately, many people, including many of our teachers, couldn't see the differences in opportunity that our kids faced.

http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-07-08/business/29750157_1_susan-thompson-buffett-warren-buffett-retailers

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/business/2012/01/warren-buffett-to-match-republicans-tax-donations/

It's relatively easy to get rich, depending on how much you want to work and/or lower your standards.

The harder thing is getting happy.

Good luck everyone :)

Thanks Ironrabbit

person said:

Bill Moyers has a new show and in the premiere he did one on income inequality. It was standard Bill Moyers fare if you're familiar with him. Liberal but reasoned and without the hyperbole. Here's a link to the show. Apparently the next 2 episodes are also related to income inequality.

http://billmoyers.com/episode/on-winner-take-all-politics/

Person, can you keep us posted on further segments of this? Thanks.

I don't understand, though, why it's news that gross wealth/income inequality has been politically engineered. Isn't that obvious? How else did it get here? A system that's working fairly well doesn't suddenly morph into a monster by magic. It was due to Reagan/Bush tax cuts, which encouraged overblown executive pay, along with deregulation of the financial industries. What's the mystery? Do people really think this imbalance happened out of nowhere?

@Dakini: The gross wealth/income inequality was not due simply to the Reagan/Bush tax cuts. This is not the first chapter of the story by any means. You can look back to the many millionaires that were created in America during the industrial revolution to see that it is something that is somewhat inherent in the American system. What we are experiencing now is just the latest chapter.

Dakini said:

I don't understand, though, why it's news that gross wealth/income inequality has been politically engineered. Isn't that obvious? How else did it get here? A system that's working fairly well doesn't suddenly morph into a monster by magic. It was due to Reagan/Bush tax cuts, which encouraged overblown executive pay, along with deregulation of the financial industries. What's the mystery? Do people really think this imbalance happened out of nowhere?

In the interview with the 2 authors they talk about the reasoning on the other side. Its that the income inequality is just a natural outcome of globalization. So the two are arguing that its not natural and is a result of skewed politics.

And yeah I plan on watching the other 2. I can post them once they're viewable.

I'm not able to view the video, for some reason.

@vinlyn Well, there was the robber baron age, and all that. But that tendency toward extremes, I though, was fairly successfully addressed by the New Deal and other innovations, along with the GI Bill after WWI and II. In the 40's, 50's and 60's, didn't the middle class grow? There weren't the huge income disparities then that there are now. By all means, fill me in if I'm missing something.

@Dakini, in the video they say that in the 20th century before mid 70s and presumably after the great depression that there was a faster growth in wealth (or is it income?) for the low and middle class than the top.

Jeffrey said:

@Dakini, in the video they say that in the 20th century before mid 70s and presumably after the great depression that there was a faster growth in wealth (or is it income?) for the low and middle class than the top.

this is what I thought. So if it's changed, obviously it was politically engineered. If we could achieve strong growth of the middle class then, we can do it now, but there's not the political will. In the mid-70's there was "stagflation", and after that, Reaganomics, that's why it changed. Now the rich are hooked on their goodies and don't want to give them up, they don't want a more reasonable tax structure. It takes strong leadership to make the necessary changes, and we don't have that now.

Dakini said:

I'm not able to view the video, for some reason.

@vinlyn Well, there was the robber baron age, and all that. But that tendency toward extremes, I though, was fairly successfully addressed by the New Deal and other innovations, along with the GI Bill after WWI and II. In the 40's, 50's and 60's, didn't the middle class grow? There weren't the huge income disparities then that there are now. By all means, fill me in if I'm missing something.

I just don't think that the robber baron era simply disappeared. If you look at the Republican establishment in the 1950s and 1960s, for example, who were some of the predominant names? Rockefeller. And in the late 1950s, President Eisenhower, upon leaving office, warned us about the military - industrial complex. Still in the 1960s, the concept of guns and butter was a big part of what drove wars, such as in Southeast Asia. Although I've forgotten the details after all these years, I remember in college, in the early 1970s, being required to read two books: "Who Runs America" and "Who Owns America". And the theme was still there...constant.

I'm just saying that in my view that upper class is always there. Its fortunes sometimes adjusting to other factors, sometimes its fortunes (literal and figurative) rising, sometimes falling.

Having an upper class isn't necessarily a bad thing, as long as they pay their share in taxes, which they didn't do before FDR, AFAIK, and aren't doing now. That was the great thing about the New Deal, etc. The original robber baron families were still there, as you point out, but they were required to do more to contribute to society, via taxes, so they were taken down at least a peg. And yes, I remember learning in history class that wars did wonders for stimulating the economy, but it doesn't really work like that anymore. Now they're draining the economy. Those two books sound good, I'll take a look, thanks.

The Rockefellers are still around, obviously. I think tax incentives back in the middle of the 20th Century resulted in their setting up several charitable foundations. Others like them did the same. Also maybe not a bad thing. I wonder what their tax rate used to be, back in the day? Before Reagan. I wonder if they were able to evade taxes like the corporations do now.

Dakini said:

I'm not able to view the video, for some reason.

Did you also try the link to Bill Moyers website, you can try to watch it there too.

http://billmoyers.com/episode/on-winner-take-all-politics/

I figured it out. For some reason, it takes forever for my computer to download it so I can watch it. I'll save it for tomorrow.

The rich get richer, the poor get poorer, and the broad band in the middle end up paying for both of them.

The problem is, in the US (feel free to share about the UK), the "broad band in the middle" is no longer so broad. It's shrinking, as people sink into poverty. Many have lost their homes to bank sheisters. Many have lost jobs. There's not enough unemployment relief money to go around. It's scary. State governments are running out of funds to pay pensions. It's rather amazing that in the face of such a disaster, the Republicans insist on continuing the same policies or worse.

Dakini said:

... Many have lost their homes to bank sheisters. ...

I'm not going to stick up for bankers by any means. But I have to tell you that I know people who bought houses who shouldn't have.

Dakini said:

The problem is, in the US (feel free to share about the UK), the "broad band in the middle" is no longer so broad. It's shrinking, as people sink into poverty. Many have lost their homes to bank sheisters. Many have lost jobs. There's not enough unemployment relief money to go around.

that's true...the band is getting narrower...but it's still this band that is paying far too much to the already-haves, and having to endure higher bills and taxes which aid the have-nots....

federica said:

that's true...the band is getting narrower...but it's still this band that is paying far too much to the already-haves, and having to endure higher bills and taxes which aid the have-nots....

Totally agreed.

vinlyn said:

I'm not going to stick up for bankers by any means. But I have to tell you that I know people who bought houses who shouldn't have.

This is true. Caveat emptor. But bankers also approved loans they shouldn't have, knowing what the consequences would be.

It's a mess. It's scary, and it's sickening. I am ready to hop a plane or a boat, but to where? Sweden, maybe.

Someone mentioned people border-crossing to do the work that we won't, that is very true, however what has also become evident is that Affirmative Action is now failing. It has not been reviewed or revised since its inception.

The population has changed drastically since we have such lax immigration here in the USA, and even the census shows that there is far less of an ethnic distribution/disparity.

Because of AA, and now the change in ethnic distribution, it is by far more difficult for a white male to both find a job, and also get financial aid for tuition, unless he is a veteran, for which preferential treatment is given. Especially here in Virginia.

Surely I am not the only one who has noticed this, however it is not discussed or addressed because of the global guilt pounded into our heads because of the Holocaust, slavery, and Ellis Island immigrants "having built this country". I wonder just how long we will have to continue to pay that debt.

Some of the bazillionaires like Buffett and Gates are doing good work, and have set up foundations, then there are the ones like Trump who just take and do nothing for anyone. I hope that Mr. Buffett can mobilize the other fat cats and inspire them to lighten their wallets even just a little.

There is something inherently wrong with a system that will cut services to the poor before raising taxes for the rich...but it is the rich who run this place, so there's your answer. Not gonna happen.

Just my 2 cents

Affirmative Action is failing because of backlash against it. It's being legislated out of existence.

Dakini said:

Affirmative Action is failing because of backlash against it. It's being legislated out of existence.

Really...care to share a site?

I am not aware of the backlash you speak of,much less this legislation. I have never seen it on the news sites or heard it on the news.

Also, I am not saying it should be done away with, just that since times have changed it should be adjusted accordingly so no one suffers from inequity. I do not find that to be at all racist or sexist. Times change, and so must legislation.

It's kind of like being "politically correct", we have PC'd ourselves into awkward silence.

Oh, and this just in: Warren Buffett Puts His Money Where His Mouth Is

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/impressed-delighted-warren-buffett-matches-204656439.html

Dakini said:

Affirmative Action is failing because of backlash against it. It's being legislated out of existence.

I agree, and this is not exactly anything new. One of the leading questions that is being asked is -- well just how long was affirmative action supposed to go on.

Hubris -- the efforts to modify AA are not big news headlines right now, but it's a story that has been going on for years. Try a Google search: "modify affirmative action".

The backlash got kicked off by the lawsuit against the University of CA at Berkeley, :scratch: I'm trying to remember the name. Back in the 80's. A guy sued because he was turned down for admission to the medical school there. Bakke was his last name, the Bakke case. He claimed it was on racial grounds (it wasn't; in actuality it was due to his age, but his lawyer advised him that he'd have a better chance of winning if he sued for racial discrimination). He won. Thus the term "reverse discrimination" was born.

The court ruled that the university couldn't use race as a criterion for admission. That sent shock waves through university admissions offices throughout the US. Some universities adopted an economic criterion instead, saying they'd set aside a certain number of spots for economically disadvantaged but deserving students, figuring they'd catch minority students that way.

But as a result of all these changes, Black enrollment in law schools and med schools has fallen significantly. I don't know about enrollments in undergraduate degree programs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regents_of_University_of_California_v._Bakke

Telly03 said:

Everyone still has opportunities for an education though, but I think what has changed is the willingness to work for it.

This pretty much sums up my feelings on the disparity of wealth in America.

"everyone" doesn't still have opp'ties for an education. Scholarships have dwindled, and now it's mostly about taking out loans. People living close to the economic edge are much less likely to be willing to incur huge debt to get an education. There was much more upward mobility back when the higher tax brackets paid more taxes, so that gov't had more money for scholarships.

vinlyn said:

Dakini said:

Affirmative Action is failing because of backlash against it. It's being legislated out of existence.

I agree, and this is not exactly anything new. One of the leading questions that is being asked is -- well just how long was affirmative action supposed to go on.

Hubris -- the efforts to modify AA are not big news headlines right now, but it's a story that has been going on for years. Try a Google search: "modify affirmative action".

I did aforementioned Google search. There are lots of opinion pieces, and some of them quite dated. I am looking for actual (current) legislative movements being broached or written. Don't see any.

Also,as an aside, there are precious few scholarships out there for non "minorities" (minority is not really factual anymore, since ethnic diversity has increased), and the ones that are there require you to be an activist of some sort, or you do not get the money...that in and of itself is a political agenda. No such thing as a free ride. LGBT scholarships come to mind, since I was researching them for a friend in school.

yeah, I know. All low-income people are suffering from the lack of scholarships.

re: current, or relatively recent, developments on the Affirmative Action front: sorry, can't point you to any articles. They do come up from time to time, but I've got nothing off the top of my head. Maybe check the NY Times?

What scholarships require you to be an activist? I've never heard that.

@Hubris Did you see the Wiki page on: Affirmative action in the United States? It gives a couple of more recent cases, I didn't look in detail.

Dakini said:

"everyone" doesn't still have opp'ties for an education. Scholarships have dwindled, and now it's mostly about taking out loans. People living close to the economic edge are much less likely to be willing to incur huge debt to get an education. There was much more upward mobility back when the higher tax brackets paid more taxes, so that gov't had more money for scholarships.

EXACTLY. I am there. It is no longer true that a degree will pay for itself. Used to be that they would recruit you right out of college for a high paying job...it was very competitive. Now, not only do they not recruit out of college for high pay jobs, they expect you to work for less than what they paid people without a degree 10 years ago.

I have no degree, and there are reasons for that which I will not go into now, however I desperately want to go back to school, but I'd be paying debt to the grave. So it's a catch 22.

Can't save for retirement without money,can't have money without a degree, can't have a degree without money,but the money you make won't pay for the degree so you can't save for retirement....Uhhhhh, yeah.

Hube, can't you start at community college? In some states, they're free.