Research report exposes income inequality extremes

Chuck Collins and Josh Hoxie, two scholars at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) in Washington, D.C., which describes itself as "a multi-issue research center," recently released a report titled "The Forbes 400 and the Rest of Us."

In it they draw these two conclusions about income inequality in the United States:

America's 20 wealthiest people -- a group that could fit comfortably in one single G650 luxury jet -- now own more wealth than the bottom half of the American population combined, a total of 152 million people in 57 million households.

The Forbes 400 now own about as much wealth as the nation's entire African-American population -- plus more than a third of the Latino population -- combined.

They conclude, "We believe that these statistics actually underestimate our current national levels of wealth

concentration. The growing use of offshore tax havens and legal trusts has made the concealing

of assets much more widespread than ever before."

There are a number of points about these statements that cry out for comment:

Bernie Sanders is right when he highlights the problem of income inequality in our country.

This trend has been going on for decades and has shown no let-up under that "socialist," Barack Obama

And why haven't our conservative friends spoken out on this issue? They never lose a breath bashing "big government" but nary a peep about "big wealth."

If one wants to read the whole report, go to: http://www.ips-dc.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/Billionaire-Bonanza-The-Forbes-400-and-the-Rest-of-Us-Dec1.pdf

David Gurowsky

Bradenton

This story was originally published December 15, 2015 at 12:00 AM with the headline "Research report exposes income inequality extremes ."