[Congressional Record Volume 160, Number 21 (Tuesday, February 4, 2014)]
[House]
[Pages H1549-H1550]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           INCOME INEQUALITY

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. The Chair recognizes the gentleman from 
Virginia (Mr. Connolly) for 5 minutes.
  Mr. CONNOLLY. Mr. Speaker, my friend from Illinois is right. There is 
a decline in American leadership, but it is not overseas--not at all. 
It is here at home.
  Since the 1970s, American workers have seen their wages fall or 
stagnate. The wealthiest American incomes, however, have increased 
fourfold. Even after 40 years of economic growth, today's generation 
takes home less than its grandparents did, and high school graduates 
make 40 percent less than their predecessors did four decades ago.
  This problem ought to elicit bipartisan concern, yet many of my 
colleagues on the other side of the aisle have shown little or no 
interest in the consequences of our country becoming so sharply divided 
by wealth. For many of my Republican colleagues, even talking about it 
is uncomfortable. It is time to realize that all too many Americans--
hardworking Americans--are falling behind.
  From 1979 to 2007, wages for the top 1 percent grew 156 percent, 
while the bottom 90 percent of us saw our wages grow only 17 percent. 
Since 1983, 75 percent of the growth and wealth has been captured by 
the top 5 percent, while the bottom 60 percent actually suffered a net 
decline. By 2010, nearly all middle- and low-income families have made 
the same hourly wage they did in 2000, despite having raised 
productivity during that time period by 22 percent. That is not how it 
is supposed to work. Worse, median family income was 6 percent lower. 
But this lost decade only caps a trend that has been going on in this 
country for over 30 years.
  In what might be the most telling portrait of how middle- and low-
income Americans are being shut out of the

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new economy, Bloomberg recently reported that 95 percent of wealth 
generated since the Great Recession went to the richest 1 percent--95 
percent went to 1 percent. In real terms, 9 out of 10 people control 
less wealth than they did before the crash.
  In 2012, the top 10 percent of earners took home more than half of 
the U.S. total income. This is the highest level ever recorded. Income 
and wealth haven't been this concentrated since before the Great 
Depression, and we are beginning to rival the gilded age of the late 
19th century.
  A recent Gallup poll shows that the concerns about inequality have 
moved beyond academia and into the public consciousness. According to 
Gallup, two out of three Americans are dissatisfied with income and 
wealth distribution in the United States, including 54 percent of all 
Republicans and 70 percent of Independents. The same poll found that 
many Americans now worry about their ability to find future 
opportunity, and only 54 percent believe that one can get ahead by 
working hard. What does that say about the American Dream?
  Justice Louis Brandeis once said:

       We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated 
     in the hands of a few, but we cannot have both.

  Letting a generation of Americans remain underemployed, underpaid, 
and despairing about their future creates a dangerous cycle of economic 
and social destruction, and it damages democracy. Nations whose 
citizens believe that the game is rigged against them are not beacons 
of democracy. Civic culture corrodes, and space opens for divisive and 
extreme politics. We have seen that here at home. The new Pope, Pope 
Francis, recently lamented that the world's inequality is quietly 
undermining social and political institutions. He gets it.
  Last week, the President highlighted how our Nation's wealth and 
income gaps have become too large to continue to ignore. Congress 
cannot continue to stand idly by. I urge my colleagues to consider the 
many bipartisan proposals that would jump-start growth for all 
Americans. We need to be investing in this country's crumbling 
infrastructure. My own Put America Back to Work Act, which would 
reauthorize Build America Bonds programs, would give local government 
another tool to jump-start the economy and infrastructure projects.
  Generations of Americans, starting with our Founders, made their way 
to America's shores, attracted by the promise of opportunity and the 
belief that, through hard work, they could get ahead. Unfortunately, 
that dream is at risk today.
  I urge my colleagues to join all of us in preserving opportunity for 
all Americans, and prevent our Nation from becoming a nation of stark 
divide between the haves and the have-nots.

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