Why we should care about inequality (PART II)

This is the second of two posts dealing with economic inequality in the United States. In the first post, I detailed why it is important to reduce inequality in the US, and I reviewed evidence suggesting that Americans seem to want to reduce inequality. In this post, I discuss why inequality continues to increase, despite people's desire to reduce it.

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"the duty of the man of wealth is to consider all surplus revenues which come to him simply as trust funds... becoming the mere trustee and agent of his poorer brethren." --Andrew Carnegie

In my previous post I discussed how people with less in America (less wealth, income) tend to have poorer health outcomes than their wealthier counterparts. More specifically, the have-nots don't live as long as the haves, and have a greater risk for mortality due to injury/illness. I also discussed how countries with reduced economic inequality have better health outcomes for their poorer citizens, and how Americans--somewhat surprisingly-- actually prefer a society that is more equal in its distribution of wealth.

Why then, does inequality continue to increase in America? Research implicates two reasons:

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