Take an honest look at nation’s ‘equality gap’

There's a big government push on narrowing the “equality gap” between the wealthy and the poor.

It isn't going to happen, even with our “Robin Hood” style politicians. Here are some facts about “the gap” (from recent articles in National Review, Wall Street Journal and New York Times).

Wealthy households have only 13 percent of the family not working, while poor families have 68 percent of those in their households not working.

Inherited wealth amounts to 13 percent of the wealthy families' holdings, the “gated 1 percent” has inherited

15 percent of their wealth. The middle class and even the poor classes have higher percentages of their assets originate from inherited sources.

Also, 78 percent of the wealthy households are married, compared to only 17 percent for the poor households.

The top 20 percent of households are married, work their backsides off, save and invest their money, live within their means and are better educated.

Believe it or not, politicians are having difficulty figuring out more ways to spend money on the poor because we already pay for education, food, housing, job training, health care, cellphones, etc.

I pray that this “gap” can be narrowed and the less fortunate can be elevated in their standards of living, but I believe they'll need to take a good look at why the “wealthy” are better off. By the way, I am not wealthy, I “get along” and cheer for every honest success story that comes across my path.

Phil Alexander

Marion