San Antonio College Library

This lecture launcher directed by Shola Lynch explores today's income inequality and features economists from across the political spectrum discussing root causes of the increasing income gap, and primate experiments on understandings of fairness. Part of WE THE ECONOMY, a series of short films developed by renowned filmmakers and a panel of top economic experts.

In the last 30 years, the wages of the top 1 percent have grown by 154 percent, while the wages of the bottom 90 percent have grown by only 17 percent. As the rungs of the economic ladder move further apart, some argue that opportunities to achieve the American dream of upward mobility could disappear, they assert, as the rich grow richer and the wages of the middle class and the poor hardly grow at all. But others consider income inequality a positive...

In the first three years of economic recovery, 95 percent of the gains have gone only to the top 1 percent of Americans, while the proportion of working people who define themselves economically as lower class is at its highest level in four decades. But more and more people are fighting back. "We want an economy that works for everyone, not just for a small elite," says economic analyst Robert Reich-a man called one of the best cabinet secretaries...