I’m responding to Richard Davis Wednesday column about income inequality. (“There is no increase in inequality.”) Most of it makes some sense. Where he loses me is when he says that minimum wage jobs are now a way up to the middle class. Maybe in the ’70s they were. Maybe even in the ’80s.
In my youth, I did just what Mr. Davis suggested. It worked. But my eventual above average pay began to eroded significantly over time.
My wife went to college with much better results.
The answer to upward mobility, as President Obama has repeatedly said, is giving the disenfranchised the same education as the middle class. Doing the status quo will repeat the cycle of poverty. Spending on education for the poor is often a fraction of that for the well-to-do. But as throughout history, the “haves” are mostly interested in keeping what they have. The defunding of Head Start is a great example.
The state Supreme Court has mandated basic educational equality. Let’s do it in reality. Then the poor may have a better opportunity to get the higher education that could propel them to prosperity.
Rick Walker
Snohomish
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