Now imagine what Sharpton could have asked but did not. He could have asked about America's growing inequality. From 1977 to 1999 the income of the poorest fifth of households fell by 9 percent. The income of the top 1 percent, on the other hand, more than doubled. During the same period the income of the top 20 percent of households increased by 43 percent.
Higher profits mean higher stock prices and more money in the pockets of shareholders.
The incomes of CEOs, however, have more than doubled between 1989 and 1997. They earn now more than 116 times what the average worker makes with U.S. CEOs earning, on average, more than twice as much as CEOs in other advanced economies. That's very nice for them. Sharpton could have talked about falling incomes and growing poverty. The poverty rate of black families with children in 1998 was 30.5 percent.