Inequality is increasing worldwide. Thirty years ago, we launched something called the War on Poverty. The idea, which didn't sound insane at the time, was that the world's richest nation ought to be able to lift its poorest citizens out of dire want. This didn't work out very well.
Truth is, the effort was hastily conceived and clumsily launched.
Some of the programs were almost as bad in terms of bureaucracy and inefficiency as conservative caricatures later portrayed. Others, like Head Start, worked better, but in any event, the war was soon overwhelmed by our decision to launch a simultaneous war on Vietnam. That reasoning always struck me as curious, and now, an enormously important new study indicates it is dead wrong. Inequality is increasing worldwide at an ominous and alarming rate. Back in 1960, the poorest 20 percent of the world's people got a miserable 2.3 percent of world income.