Today, August 31, 2001, the New York Times announced on its front page that a new study of preliminary 2000 Census figures showed that median household income in New York, Connecticut, California, and Washington DC was below 1990 levels.
The study, produced by Queens College professor Andrew Beveridge, was met with official denials. New York Republican governor George Pataki's chief economist, Stephen Kagann, flatly stated that "Nobody's real income goes down during periods of prosperity -- no group of people". This is in clear defiance of reality: the study showed that the median household income of New Yorkers- the level which half of New York households earn less than- declined by $2876 in the 1990s to $52313. Professor Beveridge states that "you have this squeeze in the middle- people like cops, firemen, people making less than $80000 a year". Perhaps to Mr. Kagann, the only people who matter are the top fifth of New York's income distribution, which saw their incomes rise by 13.6 percent, to $173,418. In fact this rise was so high that the average income, found by dividing total income by the total number of households, actually increased over the period.
The study also considered only income. In addition, housing costs soared in the 1990s as developers rushed to cater to the rich and neglected housing for the majority, and health care costs rose dramatically as a result of a bipartisan policy of catering to health care corporations and neglecting the health of human Americans.
The lesson for Greens is that the myth of economic growth as a cure for all the nation's ills is contradicted by the experience of the vast majority of Americans. A little nudge may be enough to drop this myth over the precipice of reality on which it now stands.
