Divided: The Perils of Our Growing Inequality

by David Cay Johnston (Editor)

Overview

Praised as a “page-turner…just the kind of spotlight that is needed” (Counterpunch) and “a potent chronicle of America's 'extreme inequality'” (Kirkus Reviews), Divided collects the writings of leading scholars, activists, and journalists—including Elizabeth Warren, President Barack Obama, Joseph E. Stiglitz, Paul Krugman, and Barbara Ehrenreich—to provide an illuminating, multifaceted look at one of the most pressing issues facing America today.

According to Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston, most Americans, in inflation-adjusted terms, are now back to the average income of 1966. Shockingly, from 2009 to 2011 a third of all the increased income in a land of 300 million people went to just 30,000 of them, while the bottom 90 percent saw their income fall. Yet in this most unequal of developed nations, every aspect of inequality remains hotly contested and poorly understood.

Exploring areas as diverse as education, justice, health care, social mobility, and political representation, here is an essential resource—“an indispensable guide to the causes and effects of the growing wealth gap” (World Wide Work)—for anyone who cares about the future of America and compelling evidence that inequality can be ignored no longer.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781620970850
Publisher:	New Press, The
Publication date:	08/04/2015
Pages:	352
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.10(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

David Cay Johnston is an investigative journalist and the winner of a 2001 Pulitzer Prize. He is the former president of the Investigative Reporters & Editors and the author of the bestselling Perfectly Legal, Free Lunch, and The Fine Print. He teaches at Syracuse UniversityCollege of Law and lives in Rochester, New York.

Table of Contents

Introduction David Cay Johnston ix

Insights on Inequality xix

Overview

Inequality and Democracy Barack Obama 1

The Vanishing Middle Class Elizabeth Warren 17

Necessaries Adam Smith 30

Income Inequality

How Gains at the Top Injure the Middle Class Robert H. Frank 35

Inequality Is Holding Back the Recovery Joseph E. Stiglitz 44

Wage Theft Kim Bobo 50

Home Depot's CEO-Size Tip Barbara Ehrenreich 65

Why Do So Many Jobs Pay So Badly? Christopher Jencks 67

In the Heart of Our Economy and Our Lives Beth Shulman 75

Household Wealth Inequality Edward N. Wolff 90

Inequality Across Generations Jared Bernstein 97

"I Didn't Do It Alone" Chuck Collins Felice Yeskel 100

Arthur A. Robertson and the 1929 Crash Studs Terkel 108

Graduates v. Oligarchs Paul Krugman 115

Education

No Rich Child Left Behind sean f. reardon 123

Achievement Gap: Editorial Projects of the Education Research Center 130

Back to School Mike Rose 136

Educational Quality and Equality Linda Darling-Hammond 153

Health Care Inequality

Health and Income Inequalities Are Linked Richard Wilkinson 161

Unequal Quality of Care Mary E. O'Brien 165

Reducing Health Care Disparities Olveen Carrasquillo Jaime Torres 173

Universal Health Care Leo W. Gerard 180

U.S. Health Care Costs the Most-by Far David Cay Johnston 185

Inequality Kills Stephen Bezruchka 190

Debt and Poverty

Jailed for Being in Debt Chris Serres Glenn Howatt 203

America's Poverty "Tax" Gary Rivlin 211

Hunger in America Donald S. Shepard Elizabeth Setren Donna Cooper 215

Georgia's Hunger Games Neil deMause 219

Living Down to Expectations Stephen Pimpare 226

Policy

How Economics Is Biased Toward the Rich Moshe Adler 235

Don't Drink the Kool-Aid Robert Kuttner 246

Social Security Reduces Inequality-Efficiently, Effectively, and Fairly Nancy Altman Eric Kingson 250

Arguments For and Against Income Inequality Thomas L. Hungerford 260

Inequality of Hazard Frank Ackerman Lisa Heinzerling 264

A Different Kind of Epidemic Ernest Drucker 273

Prison's Dilemma Glenn C. Loury 284

Family

Men and Their Underpaid Women David Cay Johnston 291

Race, Gender, Family Structure, and Poverty Peter Edelman 295

Employed Parents Who Can't Make a Living Lisa Dodson 305

Contributors 313

Additional Reading 319

Permissions 321

Editorial Reviews

"A potent chronicle of America's 'extreme inequality, the worst by far of any nation with a modern economy.'"
—Kirkus Reviews

From the Publisher

2014-02-26
Investigative reporter Johnston (The Fine Print: How Big Companies Use "Plain English" to Rob You Blind, 2012, etc.) collects together writings from forty authors representing many different fields of endeavor to present a multifaceted picture of inequality. Among the contributors are President Barack Obama, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Nobel laureates Joseph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, journalist Barbara Ehrenreich, international trade unionists, and specialists from academia and the think-tank world—even Studs Terkel. The keynote of the collection is the president's Dec. 6, 2011, speech in Osawatomie, Kan., in which he argued that widening inequality contributed to the financial collapse in 2008. On that occasion, Obama struck a note of optimism about his reforms and their prospects for implementation. Johnston's introduction is quite a bit more pessimistic, as he notes that nearly 95 percent of all income gains between 2009 and 2012 went to the top 1 percent. The income of the "vast majority, the bottom 90 per cent," shrank by 15.7 percent on average, to a level lower than it was in 1966. Other contributors fill out the picture and shape a timeline of the widening of the divisions. Warren's piece on the disappearing middle class was written in 2004. In 2007, Ehrenreich exposed Home Depot Chairman Robert Nardelli's monstrous 2007 golden parachute. A chapter by Donald S. Shepherd, Elizabeth Setren and Donna Cooper on how hunger increased in America during the recession by 30 percent appeared on Slate in 2012. Also documented: how income inequality constricts access to goods both public and private, like food, education and health care. Johnston includes an excerpt from Adam Smith's 1776 Wealth of Nations: "By necessaries I understand not only the commodities which are indispensably necessary for the support of life, but whatever the custom of the country renders it indecent for creditable people, even of the lowest order, to be without." A potent chronicle of America's "extreme inequality, the worst by far of any nation with a modern economy."

Kirkus Reviews