ABSTRACT
This chapter demonstrates that the level of inequality in America is extremely high. Inequality rises during each business expansion because the rapid rise of profits contrasts with the tiny increase in wages and salaries. The chapter shows that sometimes-neglected point: that increasing inequality in each business expansion is the most important factor leading to recessions and unemployment. It also shows how conservatives see inequality as a result of unchangeable differences among people, while progressives see inequality as the result of capitalist institutions, which can be changed. The chapter presents that inequality ratio is profits divided by wages and salaries, and the Golden Age, approximately from 1949 to 1970, witnessed a decline in inequality mainly because of the unique circumstances after the Second World War. In the transitional period of the 1970s, the inequality ratio continued a slow decline, but a great many of the basic institutions of American capitalism had enormous changes.
