The Growing Gulf Between the Rich and the Rest of Us by Holly Sklar

According to Holly Sklar from the essay “The Growing Gulf Between the Rich and the Rest of Us” since 1975 all the gains in household income have been enjoyed by only 20 percent of households in United States (U.S.). Since 2000, wrote the author, America’s billionaire club has gained 76 more members, but on the other side, the poverty count in U.S. during the some period had grown with more than five million people. Furthermore, Sklar credits infant mortality in the U.S. as almost the same as Malaysians, but Malaysia’s gross domestic product is lower than the quarter of the U.S, and infant death rates among black children in Washington D.C. is the same as in Kerala, India- a third world country. According to Sklar, one who wants to arrive up the very top, the realm of Forbes 400, richest Americans, one should daily invest in his or her bank accounts more that a million for two years. The members of the Forbes 400, wrote Sklar, include Bill Gates with $51 billion, Walton family heirs, and even Stephen Bechtel Jr. who got rich from hurricane reconstruction disasters and shoddy work from Iraq to Boston. Also, inscribes Sklar, combining the Forbes 400 wealth totals more than the gross domestic product of Spain, the world’s eighth largest economy, but when comparing to the number of Americans who live in poverty would take the combined populations of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and Arkansas. Millions of Americans can not afford adequate health care, housing, child care, food, and transportation which are basic expenses required to live normally in society. Nevertheless, wrote Sklar in the essay, inflation touches middle class Americans by lowering their budgets from $46,129 in 1999 down to $44,389 in 2004 because the Bush administration used hurricane “recovery” to camouflage real policies that brought windfall profits to companies like Bechtel. Those who created inequalities, according to Holly Sklar, between the rich and the rest of Americans, took pant in widening the gulf that weakened the U.S. economy and may even destroy the American Dream.