Bell Curve

5 1 6 Living Together The Way We Are Headed 5 17affluent, roughly double what it was a decade earlier.5 Furthermore, thisgrowth has accompanied stagnant real income for the average family.Here is the last of the many graphs we have asked you to examine inthis book. In some ways, it is more loaded with social implications thanany that have come before.In the 1970s, economic growth began to enlarge the affluent classMedian family income Percentage of families with(bars)incomes over $100,000 (line)$40,000 - - 6The shaded years are ones in which real per capitaGNP dropped. All figures are based on 1990 dollars.Sources: Median family income: U.S. Bureau of the Census 1991, Tahle R-4, supplementcdwith U.S. Bureau of the Census 1993, Tahle B-11. For families with incomes over $100,000,data from 1967-1990 are taken from U.S. Bureau of the Census 1991, Tahle R-3: U.S. Rtr.reau of the Census, 1993, Tahle B-6. Figures for 1947-1964 are estimated from U.S. Rureauof the Census 1975, Series G 269-282, adjusted for differences in definition of the h~mrly.The graph illustrates the reason for the intense recent interest inAmerican income inequality. From the end of World War 11 until theearly 1970s, average family income rose. Then in 1973, median familyincome hit a peak. Part of the reason for the subsequent lack of progresshas been the declining real wages for many categories of blue-collar jobs,described in Chapter 4. Part of the reason has been the decline in twoparentfamilies (economic progress continued, though modestly, forfamilies consisting of married couples). In any case, the average Americanfamily has been stuck at about the same place economically formore than twenty years.For the affluent, the story diverges sharply. Until the early 1970s, theproportion of families with $100,000 in 1990 purchasing power increasedslowly and in tandem with the growth in median family income.Rut after progress for the average family stalled, it continued for the affluent.The steepest gains occurred during the 1980s, and Ronald Reagan'spolicies of the 1980s are commonly thought to be an importantforce (in praise or blame) for increasing the number of affluent. Buteconomists know that there is a difficulty with this explanation, as youwill see when you compare the 1970s with the 1980s. The rising proportionof families with incomes of more than $100,000 since the early1970s does not seem to be a function of any particular political party orpolicy, except insofar as those policies encourage an expanding economy.It has gone with gains in real per capita GNP (indicated by theunshaded bars in the graphic) whether those gains occurred underRichard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, or George ~ush.[~I Thereis no reason to think that this trend will be much different under BillClinton or his successors, if the economy grows. The net result is thatthe affluent will constitute a major portion of the population in the relativelynear future, and they will increasingly be constituted of the mosttalented.Try to envision what will happen when 10 or 20 percent of the populationhas enough income to bypass the social institutions they don'tlike in ways that only the top 1 percent used to be able to do. RobertReich has called it the "secession of the successful."' The current symbolof this phenomenon is the gated community, secure behind its wallsand guard posts, hut many other signs are visible. The fax, modem, andFederal Express have already made the U.S. Postal Service nearly irrelevantto the way that the affluent communicate, for example. A moreportentous development is the private court system that businesses arebeginning to create. Or the mass exodus from public schools amongthose living in cities, if they can afford it. Or the proliferation of privatesecurity forces for companies, apartment houses, schools, malls, and anywhereelse where people with money want to be safe.Try to envision what will happen to the political process. Even as ofthe early 1990s, the affluent class is no longer a thin layer of rich peoplebut a political bloc to be reckoned with. Speaking in round numbers(for the precise definitions of both groups are arbitrary), a coalitionof the cognitive elite and the affluent class now represents somethingwell in excess of 5 percent of families and, because of their much higher