'Billionaires’ Row and Welfare Lines'

Charles Blow:

Billionaires’ Row and Welfare Lines, by Charles Blow, Commentary, NY Times: ... It’s a great time to be a rich person in America. The rich are raking it in during this recovery.

But in the shadow of their towering wealth exists a much less rosy recovery, where people are hurting and the pain grows.

This is the slowest post-recession jobs recovery since World War II. The unemployment rate is falling, but for the wrong reason: an increasing number of people may simply be giving up on finding a job. ...

This disconnecting is particularly acute among young people..., a staggering 5.8 million young people nationwide — one in seven of those ages 16 to 24 — are disconnected, meaning not employed or in school, “adrift at society’s margins,” as the group put it.

Median household income continues to fall...

The dire statistics take on even more urgency when we consider what they mean for America’s most vulnerable: our children.

According to First Focus,... “...The number of homeless children in public schools has increased 72 percent since the beginning of the recession.” ... Nearly one in four American children live in poverty. ...

And yet, the value of aid for those families is shrinking and under threat. ...

There is an inherent tension — and obscenity — in the wildly divergent fortunes of the rich and the poor in this country, especially among our children. The growing imbalance of both wealth and opportunity cannot be sustained. Something has to give.