Thomas Sowell‘s latest column focuses on the facts of income inequality.
Income inequality has long been one of the liberals’ favorite issues. So there is nothing surprising about its being pushed hard this election year.
If nothing else, it is a much-needed distraction from the disasters of Obamacare and the various IRS, Benghazi, and other Obama-administration scandals.
Like so many other favorite liberal issues, income inequality is seldom discussed in terms of the actual consequences of liberal policies. When you turn from eloquent rhetoric to hard facts, the hardest of those facts is that income inequality has actually increased during five years of Barack Obama’s leftist policies.
This is not as surprising as some might think. When you make it unnecessary for many people to work, fewer people work. Unprecedented numbers of Americans are on the food-stamp program. Unprecedented numbers are also living off government “disability” payments.
There is a sweeping array of other government subsidies, whether in money or in kind, that together allow many people to receive greater benefits than they could earn by working at low-skilled jobs. Is it surprising that the labor-force participation rate is lower than it has been in decades?
