Pethokoukis on Obama and Inequality

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Here’s the bottom line: America’s pro-market turn some three decades ago reversed what then seemed like unstoppable national decline. (Nations that didn’t make that choice, such as Japan and France, have not fared well.) Yes the rich got a lot richer, mostly due to technology and globalization. But the middle-class did pretty well, also. Pre-tax incomes at the bottom end suffered, but the safety net has helped a lot. Inequality has likely increased sharply at the very high end, but has been stable elsewhere along the income distribution spectrum. Mobility could be better, but the big problem is really upward mobility from the very bottom. And America remains the world’s innovation leader.

Obama’s revisionist history and one-sided, black-and-white economic analysis may please his dispirited base, but they won’t help America make the right decisions going going forward about how to boost growth and ensure those economic gains are as broadly shared as possible.

Source:James Pethokoukis, “Obama’s Big Inequality Speech: Short on Facts and Vision, aeiideas.com, December 5, 2013