OK, the stock market is up, inflation is weakening and employment is stabilizing, but our post-pandemic economy has been chaotic and troublesome for many… alright, maybe not the rich. But by troublesome, I mean troublesome and complicated for economists, bankers and corporations, and especially everyday workers. One thing is for sure; the wealth gap in America has grown larger. Inflation and prices have hurt the everyday worker a whole lot more than corporate chieftains and hedge-fund billionaires. To say that the circumstances are almost Dickensonian is nearly true.

Adam Smith, the famous 18th century Scottish economist and author of “The Wealth of Nations”, is often cited as the father of modern capitalism. Smith is famously epitomized as the essential pioneer of free-market capitalism from the pre-industrial times of the late 1700s.

Smith once said, “Wherever there is great property, there is great inequality. For one very rich man, there must be at least 500 poor, and the affluence of the few supposes the indigence of the many.” Does this mean he views mass poverty in capitalist economies as a given, as inevitable? If so, does this mean in the evolution of democratic-capitalism, that Judeo-Christian ethics and morality are only relative to our allegiance to free-market doctrine?

What about the more complex, post-pandemic years of our 21st century economy and the yawning wealth gap in America?

Allow me to elaborate.

According to Forbes Magazine, the average salary of an S&P 500 corporate CEO is $16.7 million. The average U.S. worker’s salary is .3% of that or $61,500. The average U.S. teacher’s salary is $57,388. The average construction worker’s salary is $39,000 or $18.75 per hour. The average grocery store clerk’s salary is $39,744 and the average childcare worker’s salary is $33,242.

Of course, these average salary figures will vary from state to state, but generalizing averages for all America is close enough for the case that I’m trying to make. For example, the minimum annual income for a family of four to be considered middle class ranges between $51,798 in Alabama to $81,396 in the District of Columbia.

You’ve heard it said that the middle class made America great, but it is shrinking. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the middle class is officially those whose earnings put them in the 40th to 60th percentile of household income. That income range is $55,001 to $89,744, which puts the likes of teachers, childcare workers, construction workers and general service workers either at the cusp of or well below that middle class category.

There are other indicators that much of America isn’t feeling a lift from our economy?

SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program), previously known as America’s food stamp program, has increased from about $40 billion in 2000 to $119 billion in 2022. That translates into 18 million households on stamps in 2000 to 42.4 million households in 2022.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) reports an overall increase in low-income areas in the U.S. This increase has seen a net surge in low-income “food deserts” in the U.S. With growing inaccessibility to nutritional food, it’s no surprise that there is also an increase in health care disparities. The NIH estimates that as of August 2023, there were over 6,500 food deserts among America’s 50 states.

Inflation and pricing have had much to do with the widening wealth gap in the United States, and the pandemic had an outsized impact. When Covid-19 damaged supply chains and supplies struggled to meet demand, companies boosted prices to keep shareholders happy and profits high. The wealthy were cushioned by under-mattress savings and corporate investments, but those living paycheck-to-paycheck felt the burden of a diminishing lifestyle, limited access to nutritional food, and access to affordable housing.

As the economy and supply chains began to recover, corporations kept prices high to keep profits surging and, of course, inflation persisted. The rich got even richer while those marginalized suffered further.

I’m forever amused by the corporate euphemisms that paralleled all this. It wasn’t corporate profiteering that fueled inflation, it was, according to the chief economist at USB Bank’s Global Wealth Management, “profit-margin expansion.” Folks are quick to blame anyone and everything for inflation, supply chains, congressional budgets, global trade issues, the Federal Reserve, the president, the Covid-19 virus, and of course, corporate profiteers. It’s probably all of the above and more, but things are beginning to change.

Workers are beginning to bow their necks. Autoworkers have said enough with the huge corporate profits and are getting significant salary increases. Schools are paying up to keep teachers. Hospitals are paying up to keep nurses who have fled the stress of being overworked, understaffed and underpaid. Homeowners stopped building projects, walking away when steel prices and lumber prices soared and stayed high after supply chains smoothed out, but prices have started to come down.

Slackening demand and high interest rates are finally having an effect. Memo to Ford, GM and Stellantis: Want to maintain those high automobile profits? Sell more cars at a lower price. Isabel Weber, assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, put it this way, “In the first and second stages, profits were contributing to inflation and corporations were winning versus labor. Now we are at the wage catch-up stage.” Now workers want higher wages to reflect inflation losses.

None of this will significantly change the innate construct of the wealth gap in the United States, but hopefully it will ease some of the pain. Housing issues are still huge with rental rates and interest rates still high and inventory of homes low as homeowners on previous mortgages are afraid to sell and give up their low interest rates of yesteryear.

A warped economic reality still exists in the United States. Major League Baseball players make on average $4.9 million per year. Shohei Ohtani is about to sign for $70 million per year. The median income (not average) in the United States is $40,480, .8% of the average MLB player.

Adam Smith’s attitude with respect to poverty was that it’s simply a necessary by-product of a wealth-producing society, that the producer is more important than the consumer. Mahatma Gandhi had a contrary thought, often repeated by former senator Hubert Humphrey: “The measure of a society is how well it treats its weakest members.”

No one wants to live in the hardships of Oliver Twist’s England, especially Oliver. This time of year a better Dickens’ income gap lesson and story would undoubtedly be “A Christmas Carol.”

Bill Sims is a Hillsboro resident, retired president of the Denver Council on Foreign Relations, an author and runs a small farm in Berrysville with his wife. He is a former educator, executive and foundation president.