The United States has held the dubious distinction as the most unequal society among industrialised nations for well over a decade. But the gap between rich and poor has accelerated throughout the economic recovery of the 1990s. Executive pay is now 500 percent higher than it was 15 years ago. The average boss now earns a staggering 326 times the wage of the average factory worker, compared with 44 times in 1965.
But executive pay is just the tip of the iceberg. It hides the astronomical rise in income among the richest 1 percent of the population the biggest corporate shareholders. In fact, official government income statistics do not even include this category of people. The highest income counted by the US Census Bureau is a mere $1 million up from $300,000 since as recently as 1994, but a drop in the ocean for the likes of Microsoft's Bill Gates. Thus the massive incomes of billionaires and multimillionaires are not included in the government's calculations of the gap between the richest and poorest fifths of the population. As Michael Parenti argued in Dollars and Sense recently, 'The difference between Michael Eisner, the Disney CEO who pocketed $565 million in 1996, and the individuals who average $9,250 is not 13 to one but over 61,000 to one.' Yet two thirds of so called 'taxpayer relief' (read tax breaks) go to the wealthiest 1 percent.
The filthy rich haven't just got richer, the poor have got much poorer. A recent study showed that in New York the poorest fifth of families with children saw their incomes drop by 20 percent in the last ten years, adjusted for inflation, to $6,787. Although the federal government has made no attempt to track what has happened to the millions of families who have now lost their welfare cheques and food stamps, a New York state survey conducted over the last year shows that
many have fallen into complete destitution. The vast majority of those thrown off welfare have no reportable income whatsoever months afterwards. For example, only 22.1 percent of those dropped from New York City's welfare programme between January and March 1997 received $100 or more in income over the entire following three month period the study counted them as 'employed'.
With one in four young children living in poverty, the US continues to have the highest rate of child poverty among industrialised nations. But a growing portion live in families with at least one working parent 63 percent, compared with 54 percent in 1993. If there was ever any doubt that poverty is not caused by laziness, current statistics certainly provide the proof. Nevertheless, in 1995 Congress instructed the federal tax agency, the Internal Revenue Service, to scrutinise the income tax forms of the working poor. As a result, back taxes and penalties are increasing for the poor and declining for the rich.
The human face of these statistics is everywhere to see. New York's Greenwich Village was once a haven for radicals and bohemians. Now it is overrun with chic sidewalk cafes, where fashionable yuppies sit lingering over cappuccinos while former welfare recipients sweep up litter from around their feet. The New York Times recently reported that the sale of fine wines has skyrocketed along with the rise in disposable income among the well heeled. As The Wine Spectator editor Thomas Matthews argued about this new status symbol, 'Wine shows you have money, but it also shows you have taste.' Restaurateurs say that it is not at all uncommon for the wine bill for a table of four to run into thousands of dollars. One Manhattan restaurant reports that it has sold out of its supply of 1900 Chateau Margaux, at $10,000 a bottle more than the entire annual income of the poorest fifth of New York families.
Meanwhile, in the state of Idaho where the state cut off more than three quarters of all welfare recipients in the last year, families are moving in together to stave off homelessness. In the trailer parks which house the rural poor, it is now common to find nine to 12 people living in a tiny trailer. Krista Ziebart, a mother of two, cannot work because of severe epilepsy. But she also lost her welfare cheque. 'I find myself sometimes going for days without food so my kids can eat,' she told the Times.
In the last decades those who run the US medical system have ceased to pretend they are motivated by anything other than the quest for profits. Thus, the latest trend in healthcare has nothing to do with medicine. When the rich become ill or want plastic surgery, they can recuperate in luxury. For $1,000 a day New York's richest patients can check into Room 106 in Mount Sinai Medical Centre's most exclusive wing. There they stay in a luxurious suite with a view of Central Park, a gourmet menu and a staff willing to satisfy any request.
But while hospitals cater to the whims of their richest patients, they have begun brazenly rejecting patients who cannot afford the skyrocketing costs. The 44 million people 10 million of whom are children who have no health coverage are not the only victims. Millions of people who have medical insurance through health maintenance organisations (HMOs), most of which are profit making, find that their insurance doesn't cover them when they become ill. A recent report by the Public Citizen's Health Research Group shows that 'patient dumping' turning away patients from emergency rooms because they lack insurance is reaching 'alarming levels'. Many of those being turned away are insured through HMOs which refuse to cover emergency care. The report documents cases in which women about to give birth are bundled into taxis and sent elsewhere. In another case, a toddler whose face had been bitten by a dog was turned away without getting to see a doctor. A two year old girl with a fever who was vomiting was turned away from a Massachusetts hospital. By that evening she was dead.
No one could possibly argue that people are poor in the US because there isn't enough to go around. But there are also real stirrings, even among the poorest workers. Some 30,000 welfare workers have now signed union cards in New York City. And in April fast food workers went out on strike for the first time in the US when workers from a McDonald's franchise walked out and joined the Teamsters union. This is just a glimpse of what the future holds.