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America’s
elite is fortunate in having a buffoon like the Rev. Al
Sharpton as its chief adversary. Thanks to him, it can go
on enjoying its riches undisturbed. Sharpton’s racial
tomfoolery serves to reinforce the most cherished dogma
of our media pundits: America’s economy has delivered
riches beyond the dreams of avarice. Therefore, the only
problem left to be solved is the perennial one of the blacks.
But since we have already rehashed that one umpteen times,
why not enjoy some harmless tv-sized antics?
Last
week at the Apollo Theater debate, Sharpton–whose endorsement
today is as critical as Mayor Daley’s once was–had
the honor of asking the first question. "Many in our
community have to live in fear of both the cops and the
robbers," he intoned. "What concrete steps would
you make if you were elected President to deal with police
brutality and racial profiling?" Since policing is
a local matter, there is nothing that Gore or Bradley will
be able to do about it. It was a wasted question. But Gore
and Bradley do not need to be asked twice to indulge in
sententious moralizing. Bradley spouted some drivel about
how "a wallet in the hand of a white man" is a
wallet, but "in the hand of a black man" it will
look like a gun. It made no sense. But he felt good. Sharpton
seemed happy. And the audience wandered off contentedly
afterward.
Now
imagine what Sharpton could have asked but did not. He could
have asked about America’s growing inequality. How
come America’s apparently inexorable economy and booming
stock market rewards a tiny minority but leaves everyone
else, at best, no better off than they were decades ago?
From 1977 to 1999 the income of the poorest fifth of households
fell by 9 percent. The income of the top 1 percent, on the
other hand, more than doubled. During the same period the
income of the top 20 percent of households increased by
43 percent. In 1998 the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans
earned 21.4 percent of the nation’s aggregate income–considerably
up on the 16.6 percent they earned in 1973. Higher profits
mean higher stock prices and more money in the pockets of
shareholders. The incomes of CEOs, however, have more than
doubled between 1989 and 1997. They earn now more than 116
times what the average worker makes with U.S. CEOs earning,
on average, more than twice as much as CEOs in other advanced
economies.
That’s
very nice for them. But what about everyone else? Sharpton
could have talked about falling incomes and growing poverty.
As I’ve noted berfore, in 1973 the mean income of the
poorest fifth of black households was $5684. In 1998 it
had actually declined to $5194. More than a quarter of blacks–26.1
percent–live in poverty. The poverty rate of black
families with children in 1998 was 30.5 percent. This is
a small improvement on 1973 when it had been 33.4 percent.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the real wage
of the median worker was 4 percent lower in 1998 than in
1979. Wages for the bottom 80 percent of men were lower
in 1997 than in 1989. Over the same period, real hourly
wages stagnated or fell for the bottom 60 percent of workers.
The
average hourly wage in 1973 of someone with less than a
high school diploma was $11.21. By 1997 it had gone down
to $8.22. Doubtless, Bradley or Gore would have droned on
about how our high-tech-information-superhighway-cyber-wired
world requires our getting college degrees. The trouble
is, university graduates are not doing so well either. In
1973 the average hourly wage for someone with a college
degree was $18.60. By 1997 it had declined to $18.38. In
1973 the entry-level wage of a man with a college degree
was $14.82. By 1997 it was down to $13.65. The hourly wages
of entry-level college graduates fell about 7 percent from
1989 to 1997.
Since
hourly compensation has been falling, the only way families
have been able to make ends meet is by working longer hours.
The annual hours worked by all family members in the typical
married-couple family with children grew 326 hours per year
(more than nine weeks of full-time work), from 3278 hours
per year in 1979 to 3604 hours per year in 1996. American
workers, unlike their counterparts in any other industrialized
country, are working longer and longer hours. In 1997 Americans
worked 1966 hours–an increase of 4 percent since 1980
when they worked 1883 hours. In France workers put in 1656
hours in 1997 as against 1810 in the 1980s. In Germany workers
put in 1560 hours in 1996 as against 1742 in 1980.
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