The Affluent Prosper While Everyone Else Struggles.

Since at least the fifteenth century, when the western world began to move beyond feudal political economies and theologically dominated cultural beliefs, economic growth resulting in steadily increasing incomes and wealth has been viewed as an unquestioned benefit of "modernization." As the world moves into the 1990s and look forward to the twenty-first century, it is time to take a hard, realistic look at what has actually been happening to socioeconomic inequality at the height of industrialization in the United States, as well as what may become reality in the coming century. All of the data cited here were taken from the 1989 or earlier editions of the Statistical Abstract of the United States. The U.S. economy grew steadily between 1970 and 1987. The Gross National Product per capita rose from $13.4 thousand to $18.4 thousand, which was an increase of 39 percent. This national economic growth was due partly to a small increase in the proportion of the population that was gainfully employed, which rose from 58 percent in 1970 to 62 percent in 1987. Another aspect of the U.S. economy that is relevant to this analysis is the ratio of labor costs to output per hour of paid employment.