"Chart: Washington Gridlock Linked to Income Inequality"

[applegrove]

Chart: Washington Gridlock Linked to Income Inequality

by Josh Harkinson at Mother Jones

http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/09/chart-washington-gridlock-income-inequality

"SNIP.................................



[URL=.html][IMG][/IMG][/URL]


To the long list of problems linked to income inequality, you can now add another: political gridlock. As illustrated above, the dramatic fall and rise of income inequality over the past century correlates remarkably closely with the level of political polarization in the US House of Representatives.

On its face, this correlation seems incredibly counterintuitive. As a greater share of wealth concentrates in the hands of the top 1 percent of income earners, you'd expect the other 99 percent of Americans to act as a more-unified voting block, electing politicians who'd level the economic playing field.

But that hasn't happened. And nobody really knows why.

The creators of this chart, which accompanied a paper in the most recent issue of the Journal of Economic Perspectives, float a laundry list of explanations: the ideological influence of free market capitalism, falling rates of voter turnout among the poor, higher standards of living, gerrymandering, and the influence of money in politics.



................................SNIP"