Is A Small Western Town An Anomaly Or Prediction?

Income and wealth inequality is a “thing” now. Most people know how obscenely rich the rich have gotten, how the middle class is nearly eliminated and the working poor have increased threefold in the last few decades.¹ I’ve also written about income and wealth inequality a few times before on Crime and Punishment because it’s a trend we have to question and understand in order to fix. It is not a good thing.

Fairly recent statistics detailing the rising income and wealth inequality in the U.S. from the Pew Research Center show that there is a trend: the rich, are in fact getting richer, and the middle class has been hollowed out and is a mere shell of its former, robust self and the working poor have increased. Check out these graphs showing the changes in income from 1970—2018.

But nothing brings statistics to life better than a good story, in this case, told in the form of a television segment focusing on one American community, and a few people who live there at wildly opposite ends of the economic spectrum.

CBS Sunday Morning is superb at telling stories, and this one just might show us our future. It focuses on the stunning beauty of Jackson Hole, Wyoming —who wouldn’t want to live among the natural splendor of the Tetons and nestled adjacent to the southern border of Yellowstone National Park? I’d love to at least visit, but I’m afraid I couldn’t even afford a sandwich let alone a hotel room. And the average price of a home in Jackson Hole is $3.5 million (not a typo!). According to this CBS report, Jackson Hole has the greatest wealth inequality gap in the U.S.

Enjoy this six minute segment from last week’s CBS Sunday Morning show.

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It’s interesting and a bit scary that experts are referring to today’s economic inequality as the “Second Gilded Age” (and have been for quite a few years).² It appears, at least on the surface, that our economy is following the same pattern: the first gilded age lasted from about 1870—1900 and saw the rise of insane wealth in a few, like the Vanderbilts, Carnegies and Rockefellers, political unrest, strong anti-immigrant sentiment and a crush of the working poor. It ended, in part, with a stock market crash and a progressive movement that righted a few of the wrongs through new laws. Then came the "roaring 20's", another stock market crash and the Great Depression.

Today, we once again have concentrated wealth in the hands of a few³, a nearly crazy partisan divide with competing calls for political change, and a much greater number of working people living on the edge and visiting food pantries for sustenance.

This is, of course, an incredibly broad brush of 150 years of history. And to be fair, most humans who accumulate great wealth one way or another, give back to their communities with donations, sometimes large enough to change both individual lives and our entire society. How about that Andrew Carnegie, often referred to as a robber baron, who donated millions to build and oversee our public library system?

But is philanthropy enough? During our economy’s cyclical ups and downs, millions of our fellow residents suffer and millions die. As citizens, in what is for now, a participatory democracy, we each have an obligation to question these patterns and offer solutions for change, even if that is simply researching the issues and candidates and voting.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on these issues. Are we living through a second “Gilded Age”? Should we rely on the same solutions, like philanthropy to solve the same problems, or perhaps we should make a few structural changes to our system to make our economy work for more of us? Are these loaded, biased questions?

Have at it in the Comment Section below.

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And before you go…

I ask you to join me on our journey to understand the “why” behind the facts, so together we can help find solutions to our most pressing economic, racial and environmental issues and push to right the wrongs of our system. Each of us can thrive in this country, if we don’t allow ourselves to be beaten down by the very system we’re trying to make good in. One of the best ways to do this is to become an active member of your community and a participating citizen in our larger community.

And speaking of communities, you can also become a participating member of the Crime and Punishment community by signing up right now for a free or paid subscription. Thanks in advance for your support—it allows me to keep writing!