U.S. continues to overlook income inequality

  • Geneva Overholser / Washington Post columnist
  • Saturday, July 7, 2001 9:00pm
  • Opinion

WASHINGTON — Fomenting class warfare is a crime I’ve been charged with lately. What I did to provoke the charge is write columns deploring the growing gap between rich and poor Americans. To my critics, it seems, the problem lies not in the fact of increasing inequality, but in the noticing of it.

This is natural. If you are not experiencing difficulty, you much prefer that everyone enjoy the status quo along with you. A happy dominating husband is unlikely to thrill to his wife’s awakening spirit of liberation. A comfortable white majority will have no trouble believing everyone was better off when blacks were less demanding.

Besides, anyone harping on a widening wage gap can easily be dismissed as envious.

What’s surprising is the fierce determination with which people want to believe that the highest-paid in our society earn every last dime, that the lowest-paid deserve not a cent more, and that — if the chasm is growing larger — then this must be appropriate, too. And plenty of these people, it would seem, are not among the wealthy.

I thought I could pull a few heartstrings among those unconverted to my view if I dwelt on certain occupations: police work, firefighting, teaching. If these pillars of the society are falling ever farther behind, something must be amiss. Right?

Wrong. It doesn’t take much education to be a cop, say my respondents. Those CEOs had to work hard to get where they are, and they earn those huge salaries every day. The fact that they earn them even when they fail, it seems, can be ignored. Putting your life on the line or investing yourself in the next generation just doesn’t compare.

People who believe we earn exactly what we deserve have to ignore a lot. Like how much more the top earns today, compared to the apparently ever more undeserving bottom. Income disparity is at its greatest point since 1947, when we began keeping records, according to the research group, United for a Fair Economy. It is "the largest such gap among 18 industrialized nations," says the recent book, "The Social Health of the Nation."

Commentators repeatedly say no one really cares about income inequality. "Even some passionate advocates of equality have conceded that this is not an overwhelming concern of the general public," wrote Thomas Sowell in "The Quest for Cosmic Justice."

But I think the very proliferation in charges of class-warfare provocation shows something’s afoot. The status-quo lovers are getting nervous. An Internet check of a standard set of news sources, over the same six-month period in each of the past five years, shows a steady increase in the use of the phrase "class warfare," from 277 references in 1996-97 to 934 references during the past six months.

I like to believe the growing evidence of income inequality is sinking in. Take the recent survey showing that teachers in this country earn less, compared to our average national income, than teachers in other industrialized countries — though our teachers spend more hours in the classroom. The Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development showed, in the same survey, that U.S. teacher pay has slipped recently. In 1994, a veteran teacher earned 1.2 times the average per capita income. In 1999, the salary had slid below the national average. In South Korea, by comparison, teachers earn 2.5 times the national average pay.

A poll last month from the Pew Research Center for the People &the Press does indeed indicate the public is increasingly aware of wealth and income disparities. Forty-four percent of respondents said America is divided between the haves and have-nots, compared with 26 percent in 1988.

After one of my previous warfare-fomenting columns, a North Carolina reader responded: "Like you, I am amazed that working people aren’t carrying pitchforks and torches to the local manor houses all across America. Of course I would think that: I’m one of those falling-behind teachers. But my closest friend (also my dentist) came from a blue-collar childhood and made a prosperous life with hard work, perseverance, grit, etc., and he feels exactly the same way.

"Most of his patients in this little Appalachian mountain town are the people he grew up with — factory workers, mechanics, truck drivers, day care workers — and he is furious that they are worse off now than when they were all kids together."

I like to think of this dentist, worrying away over the unfairness of income inequality. He doesn’t sound warlike to me. Just fair-minded — and observant.

Geneva Overholser can be reached at The Washington Post Writers Group, 1150 15th St. NW, Washington, DC 20071-9200 or overholserg@washpost.com.

Talk to us

> Give us your news tips.

> Send us a letter to the editor.

> More Herald contact information.

More in Opinion

toon
Editorial cartoons for Monday, Feb. 10

A sketchy look at the news of the day.… Continue reading

bar graph, pie chart and diagrams isolated on white, 3d illustration
Editorial: Don’t let state’s budget numbers intimidate you

With budget discussions starting soon, a new website explains the basics of state’s budget crisis.

Comment: Trump can go only as far as the courts will allow

Most of Trump’s executive orders are likely to face court challenges, setting the limits of presidential power.

Comment: Civil service needs reform; Trump means only to gut it

It’s too difficult to hire and fire federal workers. A grand bargain is possible, but that’s not what Trump seeks.

Saunders: U.S. Iron Dome isn’t feasible now, but it could be

Trump is correct to order a plan for a system that would protect the nation from missile strikes.

Harrop: Trump has no sense of damage from tariff threats

Even if ultimately averted, a trade war with Canada and Mexico could drive both from U.S. exports.

A young man carries water past the destroyed buildings of a neighborhood in the Gaza Strip, Feb. 2, 2025. President Donald Trump’s proposal to “own” the Gaza Strip and transfer its population elsewhere has stirred condemnation and sarcasm, but it addresses a real and serious challenge: the future of Gaza as a secure, peaceful, even prosperous place. (Saher Alghorra/The New York Times)
Comment: ‘Homeland’ means exactly that to Gazans

Palestinians have long resisted resettlement. Trump’s plan to ‘clean out’ Gaza changes nothing.

Curtains act as doors for a handful of classrooms at Glenwood Elementary on Monday, Sept. 9, 2024 in Lake Stevens, Washington. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald)
Editorial: Schools’ building needs point to election reform

Construction funding requests in Arlington and Lake Stevens show need for a change to bond elections.

FILE- In this Nov. 14, 2017, file photo Jaìme Ceja operates a forklift while loading boxes of Red Delicious apples on to a trailer during his shift in an orchard in Tieton, Wash. Cherry and apple growers in Washington state are worried their exports to China will be hurt by a trade war that escalated on Monday when that country raised import duties on a $3 billion list of products. (Shawn Gust/Yakima Herald-Republic via AP, File)
Editorial: Trade war would harm state’s consumers, jobs

Trump’s threat of tariffs to win non-trade concessions complicates talks, says a state trade advocate.

A press operator grabs a Herald newspaper to check over as the papers roll off the press in March 2022 in Everett. (Olivia Vanni / The Herald file photo)
Editorial: Push back news desert with journalism support

A bill in the state Senate would tax big tech to support a hiring fund for local news outlets.

toon
Editorial cartoons for Sunday, Feb. 9

A sketchy look at the news of the day.… Continue reading

Rent stabilization can keep more from losing homes

Thank you to The Herald Editorial Board for its editorial, regarding rent… Continue reading

Support local journalism

If you value local news, make a gift now to support the trusted journalism you get in The Daily Herald. Donations processed in this system are not tax deductible.