Use the subtabs above to get the facts on income inequality, tax inequality, wealth concentration, econnomic opportunity, inquality impacts, and pulic opinion.

Extreme inequality causes many other social problems – like decreases in life expectancy, math proficiency, literacy, social mobility, and education and increases in infant mortality, homicides, imprisonment, teenage births, social distrust, obesity, mental illness, drug addiction, and debt.  

Wilkinson, Richard G., and Kate Pickett. 2010. The spirit level: why greater equality makes societies stronger. New York: Bloomsbury Press.

About 884,000 deaths per year in the United States result from the high level of income inequality.  In other words, if the U.S. had Denmark’s inequality levels, we would have nearly 884,000 fewer deaths per year.

Naoki Kondo et al., “Income Inequality, Mortality, and Self-rated Health: Meta-analysis of Multi-level Studies,” British Medical Journal, 2009.

Economic inequality has little to no impact on economic growth.  Between 1979 and 2006, economic growth per capita was essentially the same in Europe and the United States, despite high rates of inequality in the U.S.  

Quiggin, John. 2010. Zombie economics: how dead ideas still walk among us. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Between 1982 and 2007, tuition and fees at colleges in the U.S. have increased an average of 439 percent – making it unaffordable for the middle class and the poor.

Tamar Lewin.  December 2008.  “College May Become Unaffordable for Most in U.S.”  New York Times.

Due in part to economic inequality, students from high-income families with low test scores are now more likely to complete college than low-income students with high test scores.

Economic Policy Institute.  2011.  “The State of Working America: Mobility.”

In a highly unequal society like the United States, wealthy parents find many ways – like expensive tutors and private schools – to ensure their children get an advantage. 

Quiggin, John. 2010. Zombie economics: how dead ideas still walk among us. Princeton: Princeton University Press.

Inequality is making racial disparities worse in the United States.  Nearly all indexes—income, wealth, educational attainment, homeownership and foreclosures—show growing gaps between whites and other races.

Orlando Patterson.  July 2010.  “Can't Call It Progress: African-Americans Are Earning Less Than Their Parents Did.”  Alternet.

A majority of black middle-class children now earn less than their parents and almost half of the children had fallen to the bottom of the income distribution.

Bhashkar Mazumder.  May 2008.  “Upward Intergenerational Economic Mobility in the United States.”  Economic Mobility Project.