Sharing the Gains from Economic Growth

I have a new column on inequality:

Sharing the Gains from Economic Growth, by Mark Thoma: President Obama will make reducing inequality a major part of his State of the Union Address according to several reports. But to avoid being accused of waging class warfare, he will talk about creating “ladders of opportunity” instead of focusing directly on the inequality problem.

This shift in emphasis is a mistake because it misses a key part of the inequality problem. ...

The mechanism that distributes goods and services is broken.