LOD: The Greed Gap

A concise column by veteran reporter and former Raleigh city council member Barlow Herget begins: “There are two, fast-moving major trends in the United States that are changing society and government. And they are connected. The older trend is the increasing inequality of income in the country. It started in the 1960s when CEO’s were paid about 25 times more than the average worker. In 1990, it was 107-to-one. In 2010, 325-to-one. The wealthiest one percent of the population has doubled its share of the wealth pie. They now own 35 percent of the country. They make 288 times those making the median income of $57,000. Alongside this movement is a newer trend, the great amounts of money spent on politics and the inequality of the giving. Even in our lifetime, we’ve seen former Senator Robert Morgan collect only $10 and a tank of gas for his first state Senate race and state Senator Neal Hunt receive $61,000 from just one contributor in 2012. . . .”