I’ll admit that I love “fake” news sources–The Daily Show, The Colbert Report, Huffington Post’s 236–for their willingness to cut through the spin and say what we’re all thinking. My favorite, though, is The Onion. With only a headline, or even a caption, The Onion can make an insightful point about a topic that might be too uncomfortable to discuss were it not couched in a joke. An article in this week’s issue, “Nation Ready to be Lied to About Economy Again,” had just such a headline.
Until fall of 2008, as the stock market climbed higher, much of America genuinely wanted to believe that a rising tide was lifting all boats. But, even then, opportunity was drastically unequal. As our recent State of Opportunity in America report explained, as of 2007, African American families were three times as likely to live in poverty as White families, and eleven percent of full-time, year-round workers were living in poverty. College educated women earned just 65¢ for every dollar earned by college educated men. Latinos earned just 73¢ for every dollar earned by whites, and African Americans just 75¢. These disparities demonstrated that structural inequality and a real disparity of opportunity existed, even beneath the veneer of a flourishing economy.
There’s real hope though, that the current downturn, painful as it may be, will force us grapple with the ways in which inequality undermines our economy and our fundamental values. If we emerge from this troubling time ready to be honest about persistent inequality and committed to rectifying it, then there will be a silver lining after all.
For more, visit The Opportunity Agenda’s blog.
