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In developed countries like the USA and UK, there has been a change to manufacturing. Labour-intensive, relatively low-skill work has generally moved abroad to places like China. As a whole, we (UK and USA) have benefitted from this as goods have become cheaper - overall, our countries have grown more affluent as a result.
However, while the people in the high skilled jobs have prospered as a result, people in the low skilled jobes have seen their jobs move abroad. As this is happening generally, not just in a particular sector of the economy, people who might previously have worked hard in relatively low-skill (but possibly arduous) jobs have lost their jobs and been unable to find alternative employment. The person on the production line loses their job; but their HR manager moves on to alternative work.
Various things could be done to mitigate this - protectionist policies to make foreign goods more expensive, for example; but these risk harming the economy. After all, the cheaper foreign goods produced in labour-intensive industries are often components, needed to build other more sophisticated goods in the UK or USA. A car which is completed in the UK or USA may well have components produced in a less-developed, lower-wage country.
Part of what is needed in the developed countries which have experienced this transition is the provision of healthcare for the deprived members of the population. A huge issue in the USA, especially if Trump gets his way and abolishes the Affordable Care Act; less of a problem in present-day UK; but as government cuts chip away at the NHS many believe that the intention is to move to a US-style insurance system, which will put comprehensive healthcare beyond the reach of the more deprived, exacerbating the current problems.
Of course, people in low-skilled jobs tend to be less well paid to start off with. And wealth and prosperity are associated, as you'd expect, with better health and happiness. Without a system to redistribute wealth, this redistribution of work and wealth means that the wealthier will get wealthier, and the poor will get poorer, or lose their jobs.
This probably explains to a considerable extent the election of Trump in the USA, and Brexit in the UK: in each case people were told (by [multi-] millionaires who stood to benefit) that the "ordinary people" would benefit. (Of course, most educated people believe otherwise.)
This article nicely summarises some of the evidence that income inequalities severely affect health and happiness. Norway is one of the healthiest countries in the world, not just because (thanks to oil) it is wealthy; but because it has systems to redistribute wealth, so the differences in wealth between the richest and the poorest in Norway are reduced.
We can do more to improve our health and happiness, as a society, by agreeing to tax systems that redistribute wealth more fairly. The rich and powerful always fear that if this happens they will lose out; but all the rest of us - including those of us who are pretty well off, but not so well off that we don't need to care - will lose out.
We mustn't let the top 1% pretending to act in our interests (whether by persuading us that Brexit is the way to go, or that higher income tax rates would force rich people abroad and that this will harm us) feather their own nests at the expense of the rest of us.
I have been saying for years that income inequality is the biggest public health crisis we have but everyone dismissed me as a raging liberal. Nice to finally have some peer-reviewed evidence from a quality journal to back me up. Unfortunately in today's political climate in the United States, there is absolutely no desire to reverse this situation. Things will in fact, be getting even more inequitable over the next 4 years.
Re: Immorality of inaction on inequality
In developed countries like the USA and UK, there has been a change to manufacturing. Labour-intensive, relatively low-skill work has generally moved abroad to places like China. As a whole, we (UK and USA) have benefitted from this as goods have become cheaper - overall, our countries have grown more affluent as a result.
However, while the people in the high skilled jobs have prospered as a result, people in the low skilled jobes have seen their jobs move abroad. As this is happening generally, not just in a particular sector of the economy, people who might previously have worked hard in relatively low-skill (but possibly arduous) jobs have lost their jobs and been unable to find alternative employment. The person on the production line loses their job; but their HR manager moves on to alternative work.
Various things could be done to mitigate this - protectionist policies to make foreign goods more expensive, for example; but these risk harming the economy. After all, the cheaper foreign goods produced in labour-intensive industries are often components, needed to build other more sophisticated goods in the UK or USA. A car which is completed in the UK or USA may well have components produced in a less-developed, lower-wage country.
Part of what is needed in the developed countries which have experienced this transition is the provision of healthcare for the deprived members of the population. A huge issue in the USA, especially if Trump gets his way and abolishes the Affordable Care Act; less of a problem in present-day UK; but as government cuts chip away at the NHS many believe that the intention is to move to a US-style insurance system, which will put comprehensive healthcare beyond the reach of the more deprived, exacerbating the current problems.
Of course, people in low-skilled jobs tend to be less well paid to start off with. And wealth and prosperity are associated, as you'd expect, with better health and happiness. Without a system to redistribute wealth, this redistribution of work and wealth means that the wealthier will get wealthier, and the poor will get poorer, or lose their jobs.
This probably explains to a considerable extent the election of Trump in the USA, and Brexit in the UK: in each case people were told (by [multi-] millionaires who stood to benefit) that the "ordinary people" would benefit. (Of course, most educated people believe otherwise.)
This article nicely summarises some of the evidence that income inequalities severely affect health and happiness. Norway is one of the healthiest countries in the world, not just because (thanks to oil) it is wealthy; but because it has systems to redistribute wealth, so the differences in wealth between the richest and the poorest in Norway are reduced.
We can do more to improve our health and happiness, as a society, by agreeing to tax systems that redistribute wealth more fairly. The rich and powerful always fear that if this happens they will lose out; but all the rest of us - including those of us who are pretty well off, but not so well off that we don't need to care - will lose out.
We mustn't let the top 1% pretending to act in our interests (whether by persuading us that Brexit is the way to go, or that higher income tax rates would force rich people abroad and that this will harm us) feather their own nests at the expense of the rest of us.
Competing interests: No competing interests