By Rachel Puryear

If you remember the 1980s in America, you remember Reaganomics coming into economic vogue. This is also known as trickle-down economics – the belief that making the richest richer, will also make all the rest of us richer.

Even if you’re too young to remember the 1980s, you’re still living with the lasting effects of Reaganomics, and it’s undoubtedly shaped your life – as well as your level of wealth.

Reaganomics has had decades to prove it’s really the fiscal miracle drug its proponents claimed it to be – and it’s failed miserably. Wages are stagnated, not nearly as many people can afford homes anymore, student loans are a financial ball and chain for many, and health care costs ruin many people – even if they have insurance.

One of my favorite sayings about wealth is that money is like manure – you have to spread it around to encourage growth; otherwise, if it gets hoarded, it just stinks.

If the American economy and society are going to last and thrive for the longer term, it will be only because enough people realized that what we need isn’t for the richest of the rich to do better – but for ALL of us to do better.

We’re much stronger, together.

This will take a collective shift in economic philosophy and values, which the younger generations in particular are already more likely to embrace. Here are some of the major things we need to consider, in shaping those values for the times we’re living in:

Business Does Well When People Have Money to Spend

In order for businesses to succeed, they need consumers. For consumers to support businesses, they need to have enough money to spend. A better-off population means that businesses reap the benefits of such, too.

We all can reap the tax benefits of that, too – if the wealthiest also pay their fair share, that is.

Tax loopholes that help the richest of the rich avoid paying a fair share of taxes (which should include a pretty high marginal tax rate); means the they carry a fair share of the load, they’re incentivized to hire more people and pay them better wages, to give more charitably, and that money is getting spread around (not just stinking).

Currently, the working and middle classes are burdened the most with taxes. However, many of them are convinced that it’s fiscal liberals taking and spending all their money, rather than billionaires leaving them with the proverbial tab and ducking out into the parking lot.

Fighting Poverty is Good For Everyone, Not Just Some People

People who oppose anti-poverty efforts (such as public benefits, or economic stimulation programs) tend to view such programs as taking their hard-earned money, and using it solely for the benefit of people “too lazy to work”.

As I’ve extensively detailed before, this notion is rooted in a profound lack of understanding of the reasons why people are poor, and what really helps people escape poverty.

Furthermore, we all benefit when poverty is reduced. Poor people (or formerly poor people) benefit the most directly (and their benefit alone is still important, and enough).

But so do all of us – everyone benefits when we reduce poverty.

For one thing, we all benefit economically. This builds upon the previous point. By and for both low-income people and others; more jobs are created, more businesses are started, and more money gets spent. That money spreads around and makes things grow.

As just one example; about 12.5% of the US population receives EBT food benefits (formerly known as food stamps); and they use that to spend billions of dollars in our nation’s grocery stores every year, especially in low-income areas. That’s putting food on tables; as well as keeping more stores in business, keeping their workers employed, and increasing their taxable revenue. That money is readily making its way back.

Furthermore, though, we also all benefit in non-economic ways when poverty is reduced. There’s less division, less crime (inequality drives crime more than poverty itself does), more stability, more satisfaction with society, and people are more likely to contribute positively to society.

People can be fatalistic about poverty, which might be partly a leftover from the eugenics movement (particularly the belief that the poor were genetically inferior, and that’s why they were poor). However, poverty is not inevitable, and it’s preventable – as well as fixable.

So it’s critical to realize that yes, people can get out of poverty, given the right support and opportunities (it happened for my parents and grandparents). But it takes enough of us being committed to that to make it happen.

It doesn’t happen overnight, and might not even happen within our lifetimes, even if we work hard towards it – but know that in the past two hundred years, thanks to people who fought diligently for change they would not live to see; far fewer people are poor today than they were then, and working conditions have also greatly improved (even if there’s still a lot of improvement needed today).

People Have Collectively Lost Trillions Due to Stagnated Wages

We all know that wages have not kept up with the pace of inflation in recent decades, and that most people’s earnings don’t go nearly as far as they used to.

But did you know that the collective amount of effectively reduced wages (since 1975) is to the tune of $50 trillion dollars? That’s an insanely large amount of money – as is the difference it could make in most people’s lives if they were that much richer, on the whole.

Avenues to Financial Independence are Getting Narrower, and Fewer

As I’ve detailed before, very few people ever become financially independent by working for earnings alone – to build that kind of wealth, one must leverage their income by investing in some passive income.

Two of the most common forms of passive income people have used to do so are investing in stocks (ideally, low-cost index funds), or buying a home and having it appreciate it value (which most do, over time).

When people cannot afford to buy homes, because their income is not enough for that; or they don’t have enough income left over after basic expenses to afford to invest any; then paths to wealth and financial independence become inaccessible.

When people have enough income to afford to invest, they can become wealthy – at least over time. Inadequate earnings don’t just keep people poor now, they keep them poor throughout their futures, too.

Furthermore, programs to reduce poverty need to not just help people survive, but also get ahead. Affordable education, universal health care, assistance buying homes, fairness and forgiveness with student loans, and increased wages; all help people not just get out of poverty, not even just be more comfortable, but actually build wealth and make progress towards financial independence.

This should be viewed as a laudable goal, and reflecting thoughtful financial values; not as something to curtail as excessive, extravagant, or mischaracterizing those who seek such as being entitled or spoiled.

Wealth and Power Are a Far More Dangerous Combination Than the Sum of Their Parts

In modern-day America, we tend to think of wealth and power as synonymous – and for good reason. Wealth tends to beget power, while power tends to correlate with wealth.

However, that hasn’t been the case in every time and place. There are/have been some cultures where people in power have been expected to use their privileged status to help the people first, rather than keeping it for themselves.

For example, in traditional Inuit tribes, the chiefs were often effectively the poorest men in the village, because they gave away their wealth to the needy people, as an important expectation of their exalted position.

What if the price of power was to give and give and give, rather than enrich oneself? How would that change the ethos of leadership?

We’re Not All Starting From the Same Place

There’s a game you can play with a large group, which can break down common assumptions – and hopefully, foster empathy. What happens is that everyone stands in a line, on one side of a room or field. One person asks questions of the group – if the answer is yes to a question, participants take a step forward; while they don’t if the answer is no.

The questions include things like; were you raised in a household where you had security around food and shelter, did you have two parents growing up, did anyone in your family help you with going to college or buying a home, did your parents or grandparents have college educations, did you feel safe from abuse and violence during your childhood; and other questions which reveal good fortune and advantages – or the lack thereof.

What happens after playing for a little while, is that some participants will have moved quite a ways forward, while others hardly move at all, and others are somewhere in the middle.

The result is a visual representation of a reality that’s uncomfortable for most people to acknowledge, but nonetheless is very important – that we’re not all starting from the same place in life.

No doubt, men like Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and other extremely successful billionaires worked very hard, and exercised very effective leadership to get where they are. They outdid the families they came from. However, those families were affluent to begin with; and even if they didn’t start out as billionaires, they still started out a lot further ahead than people who grew up impoverished, and with households mired in violence and dysfunction.

For African-Americans, intergenerational racism collectively impacts an entire community’s ability to move upward economically, and build wealth. Discrimination (which still happens) is a factor. But so is a relative lack of intergenerational wealth – when one cannot only not access wealth from their immediate family, but also cannot access wealth from their extended family, their elders, or their fellow community members; it’s much easier to get stuck. Remember – moving upward takes something to get started with, so having people around to help you with that is key, even if you don’t have that yourself.

If We’re Going to Make it in the Long Run, It’s Going to Have to Be Together

Division and hostility shape much of the current political landscape. And believe me, I get the frustration and sense of hopelessness around that – it’s hard to try and join forces with people who want to turn the USA into an authoritarian, theocratic oligarchy.

At the same time, the only way forward will be for enough people who do envision better economic values to come together and insist that we can do better. It doesn’t have to be everyone, but a majority is great. That’s the only way that’s ever happened before, is enough people valuing making progress.

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Thank you, dear readers, for reading, following, and sharing. Here’s to all of us doing better.

Check out my other blog, too – World Class Hugs, at https://worldclasshugs.com. It’s about celebrating empathic and HSS/HSP people, balanced versus toxic relationships, loving spirituality and spiritualism without religious dogma, and visiting gorgeous natural places.

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Uncategorized Wealth