About Inequality.org

Ten or fifteen years ago, we can attest, the growing concentration of income and wealth was not a focus of overwhelming national concern. The problem is worse today than it was then. Nevertheless, over the past year, America has taken a huge step forward in awareness. Across the political spectrum, there is almost universal acknowledgment that our nation (and planet) are pulling apart economically.

Alan Greenspan has spoken out. So has George Bush. Jim Webb made rising inequality a theme of his successful campaign for the Senate in Virginia. "When I graduated from college, the average corporate CEO made 20 times what the average worker did," Webb pointed out in his response to the President's State of the Union Message in January. "Today, it's nearly 400 times. In other words, it takes the average worker more than a year to make the money his or her boss makes in one day."

You'll find many other startling and disturbing statistics in our "By the Numbers " section. None are widely contested.

The debate now turns to three important questions: Does it matter? Why is it happening? What can be done? Despite the emerging consensus over the fact of rising inequality, there is still wide divergence of opinion over its sources - and potential solutions.

Inequality.org was created to serve as a dependable portal of information. Too much inequality, we believe, undermines democracy, community, culture and economic health. Because the problem is so important, accuracy is important, and we are committed to presenting the best and latest information.

We hope you will bookmark us, join us regularly for up-to-date information and analysis, and participate in the conversation - and the action.

STAFF

James Lardner (co-editor) is a senior fellow at Demos. He is also one of the authors and the co-editor (with David Smith) of Inequality Matters: The Growing Economic Divide in America and Its Poisonous Consequences (New Press, 2006). As a journalist, he has written for the New York Review of Books, The New Yorker, The Washington Post, and The Nation, among other publications.

Chuck Collins (co-editor) is a senior scholar at the Institute for Policy Studies and directs its Program on Inequality and the Common Good. In 1995, he co-founded United for a Fair Economy to call wider attention to the inequality issue and to promote popular organizing efforts to address inequality. He was Executive Director of UFE from 1995-2001 and Program Director until 2005. In his current position, he coordinates a national effort to preserve the federal estate tax, our nation's only tax on inherited wealth. He is the co-author, with Bill Gates Sr., of Wealth and Our Commonwealth, which makes the case for taxing inherited fortunes.

Chris Hartman (research editor) has been the research director of United for a Fair Economy and a research associate at Harvard Business School.

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