Politics, not money, have caused the rise in U.S. income inequality since the end of the 1970s. A new study from Ohio State University found that, from the ’80s onwards, presidential administrations have favored employers over workers, and this has driven income equality.
Authors David Jacobs and Jonathan Dirlam considered many factors for the change, including the decline of manufacturing, or the rise of minority populations (both of which have had a large impact on income inequality), but by studying tax statistics, they determined that “national-level neoliberal political determinants best explain the extraordinary increase in U.S. income inequality.”
