Income Inequality In The U.S.: Some Bad News

Via David Friedman, an article on income inequality in the U.S. by Arnold Kling and Nick Schulz. Here's the conclusion:

"Given the other forces driving inequality, there may be less that government can do than one might hope. Research from Heckman suggests that education is a relatively feeble remedy for the effects of family background (although Heckman believes that early intervention, in preschool or even before, shows promise).

In order to make a dramatic impact on inequality, government would have to do something about the fundamental causes: technology and marriage patterns. However, putting a brake on technological progress seems hardly feasible or desirable. And forcing people to select mates at random rather than on the basis of similar backgrounds and tastes seems similarly unlikely. As much as inequality may be a problem, no real solution is in sight."

This is terrible news for my vision of how we can have government take a much smaller role in our lives. My plan envisages our confining our social net to the truly needy, and then decreasing the number of truly needy through a growing economy. However, my plan necessitates that we have fewer poor people and that the middle class comes to be and feel truly middle class. My fear is that income inequality such as that described in the article will make it much harder to develop a middle class that truly feels middle class, as opposed to feeling just above being truly needy.