Bob Frank's 3-part series on income inequality hits Slate

12/5/2011 12:54:00 PM

Part one of "Does Inequality Matter?" by the Johnson professor of economics and author of The Darwin Economy vaults to 'most read' on site within hours of posting

Excerpt from "Does Inequality Matter?  How expenditure cascades are squeezing the American middle class" (Slate, Dec. 5)

Republicans have never wanted to talk about inequality, and many Democrats now seem afraid to. As a congressional Democratic adviser quoted by the New York Times reporter Jackie Calmes recently put it, the party is having difficulty articulating its position “in a way that doesn’t get us pegged as tax-and-spenders.”

The remarkable achievement of the Occupy Wall Street movement has been to make continuing silence about inequality politically unacceptable. Some have criticized the movement for not pressing specific demands. Yet most protesters wouldn’t pretend to have a sophisticated understanding of the forces that have been causing growing income disparities, or the policy experience to prescribe what might be done about them. But now that the movement has forced inequality onto the agenda, the time is ripe to focus on these issues. 

Read more HERE and visit back tomorrow (Dec. 6) and Wednesday (Dec. 7) for parts two and three.

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