Does inequality in the distribution of income increase or decrease in the course of a country's economic growth?
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
In middle-income countries, inequality becomes a problem because you can see there is a layer of people who are doing well, while the poor are still stuck there.
Research suggests that large divisions of income and wealth weaken demand and generate economic imbalances that create instability and undermine growth.
You need some inequality to grow... but extreme inequality is not only useless but can be harmful to growth because it reduces mobility and can lead to political capture of our democratic institutions.
Economic growth creates jobs, and countries grow when they educate their people and pursue policies that encourage households to save, existing businesses to invest, and entrepreneurs to innovate and create new markets.
When inequality gets too extreme, then it becomes useless for growth, and it can even become bad because it tends to lead to high perpetuation of inequality over time and low mobility.
In middle-income countries, inequality becomes a problem because you can see there is a layer of people who are doing well, while the poor are still stuck there. We have 300 million poor in India.
It's not enough to have economic growth. You have to distribute wealth throughout all of society.
The difference between rich and poor is becoming more extreme, and as income inequality widens the wealth gap in major nations, education, health and social mobility are all threatened.
In financial terms, my sense is that the distribution of wealth, unequal as it is, is self-perpetuating, and, especially in a linked and accelerating world, the rich get ever more quickly richer while the poor get ever more speedily poorer.
Economic inequality is less troubling if you live in a country where any child, no matter how humble his or her origins, can grow up to be president.
No opposing quotes found.