Rich Get Richer, The

In the August 2014 issue of Sojourners, Julie Polter responds to the alarm of both Pope Francis and French economist Thomas Piketty, who wrote Capital in the Twenty-First Century, that the constant growth of wealth among the few is a peril to Democratic institutions. Piketty observes that citizen-owned wealth rises 5% per year while the economic growth in developed countries for the past several decade has been lower than 5%. Polter quotes other economists noting other aspects of the growing wealth of a few. From her studies, she sees four ways to address this inequality through public policy: investing in education and infrastructure; raising the minimum wage; supporting efforts that raise wealth for people with low income; and strengthening the estate tax.   Click on http://bit.ly/1u9SqSX.