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I share Richard Freeman's concern about increasing income inequality in the United States and declining welfare for people at the lower end of the distribution. I also share his frustration at the indifference of the electorate and much of the political and policy-making community. And I admire his inventiveness in proposing new strategies to overcome the current impasse. But I am considerably less enthusiastic about the strategies themselves.
This is in part because I do not see the current tendencies in the distribution of income as indicative of social trends more broadly. Indeed, while I would give much more weight than Freeman apparently does to the deliberate policies of the Reagan-and, to a lesser extent, Bush and Clinton-administrations in producing an increasing dispersion of income, I think we should also recognize the progress made on other fronts in reducing economic disadvantage and social stigma. In the last 15 years, that progress has been particularly marked for women, the physically handicapped, gays and lesbians, and Asian Americans. Much of this progress has not been economic in the narrow sense of the term but it has greatly changed the lived experience of the members of these groups in American society. Also noteworthy: in possibly the most conservative period in American politics, we have managed to preserve the gains made in the late l960s and 1970s in the economic welfare and social status of African Americans and the aged. With the possible exception of the aged, I do not see comparable gains for disadvantaged and socially stigmatized groups in other advanced industrial societies-despite their much more even distribution of income.
It may not be completely clear why this particular pattern of social redress has emerged, but a very important factor must be the growing self-consciousness of these groups and their increasing political awareness and cohesion. This contrasts strongly with the declining strength and cohesion of...
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