Today the Christian Science Monitor is running a story about Boston mayor Marty Walsh teaming up with NYC mayor Bill de Blasio to lead a national mayors’ task force to reduce income inequality. de Blasio just announced it at this year’s US Conference of Mayors.
At a time of economic difficulty for the middle and working classes, and when the federal government’s response has been inadequate, Walsh and de Blasio have taken it upon themselves to explore what mayors can do to improve conditions for their citizens.
“Participating mayors will gather for the first time in August at Gracie Mansion, the mayoral residence in Manhattan,” the Monitor reports, “to discuss how they can use budget decisions, regulatory controls, and other levers of power to advance their goals of greater social and economic equality.”
Raising the minimum wage is one of the goals a number of cities are pursuing, which could make a significant difference for the working class.
de Blasio points out the importance of addressing income inequality to strengthen cities. “[W]e are more and more the economic engines and core for this country,” he says.
“This inequality makes it difficult to sustain the strong workforce, active consumer base, and vibrant civic life that every city needs for lasting growth,” adds Walsh.
An interesting theme here is the idea of local leaders stepping up to solve problems when higher-level government fails to come through. By leading this venture, Walsh and de Blasio are likewise filling a leadership void in which, over the last several years, all too many national politicians in both parties have been more eager for austerity than for bread-and-butter measures that will help the average person through tough times.
Cheers to Walsh.
kbusch says
but not what I think economists generally mean when they refer to income inequality. That latter group is more often thinking of the increasing share the top 0.5% is taking from the pie; they are not thinking about the inequality between the poor and, say, the upper middle class. Another measure is the divergence, growing since 1980, between the faster increase in labor productivity and the slower increase in median incomes. Wikipedia:
Looking at charts, say of U.S. poverty rates, there has been a palpable increase since the recent depression but that is in the context of a broad decline beginning in the 60s. The War on Poverty did have some effect. The poverty rate hovers around 15% now but it used to be above 20% in the 1950s. Certainly a 15% poverty rate should be unacceptable in a civilized country and maybe it’s okay if we have to use euphemisms and circumlocutions to address it. However, income inequality, as a problem, affects a bigger proportion of the population than the bottom quintile alone. In a sense, it is a different problem.
The clearest and most obvious remedy is to return to some of the redistributive upper bracket tax rates of the Eisenhower years. In Massachusetts the very first step is a constitutional amendment to put some progressivity into our income tax.