Analysis by John Harwood, CNN Updated 9:15 AM ET, Sun November 29, 2020
(CNN)Sitting in an Iowa diner a year ago, candidate Joe Biden aimed his economic agenda at the widening gap between America’s rich and everyone else.
“You have to right the market a little bit,” the former vice president told me. “The middle class is getting killed.”
Within weeks, the coronavirus hit and worsened the toll — literally and figuratively. That steepens the challenge President-elect Biden faces when he replaces President Donald Trump in January.
For at least a half century, multiple economic forces have exacerbated disparities within American society. By 2016, a Pew Research Center analysis recently found, the most affluent 5% possessed 248 times the wealth of the least affluent 40%. Wealth improves health; on average, the richest 1% of Americans live more than 10 years longer than the poorest 1%, a study in the Journal of the American Medical Association has found.
Covid has deepened both dismal grooves. Blacks and Hispanics, who lag behind Whites in wealth and income, die from the virus more than five times as often, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington.
The economic dislocations of the pandemic have largely spared more affluent Americans. Buoyant financial markets and home values have protected their wealth, and their ability to work from home has protected their jobs.
Pour vous accompagner, vous soutenir dans ce climat social et economique tragique voici “One More Time In The Ghetto” du defunt groupe The Clash.
(Capture audio de Spotify)
