The World According to Opa

The U.S. has the largest economy and is the richest nation on earth, but not per capita. Per capita, we rank only 12th among nations. This, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), is because of the size of our population relative to our Gross Domestic Product (GDP). This ranking also assumes an equal distribution of our GDP among our people, 325.7 million of us in 2017. But wealth in the U.S. is not equally or even equitably distributed. A Harvard Business School study, conducted four years ago, declared that the growing disparity between the very wealthy and the rest of us in this country is no longer sustainable. Since then, Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress have greatly exacerbated the wealth disparity.

Not including the net value of “for profit” corporations in the first quarter of 2017, according to NPR, the net worth of U.S. households and “non-profit” organizations was $94.7 trillion. That would have been $760,000 each if divided equally among the 124 million American households accounted for in the last national census. However, the net worth of the bottom 50% of these households averaged only $11,000.

Making America great again, I think, should include reducing this inequity. Do you agree? If so, how should we go about doing this?