Today’s report in the The York Times, The American Middle Class Is No Longer the World’s Richest, only confirms what many have been feeling for an increasingly long time. While our economic growth remains competitive with other nations, “trickle-down”, if that is what we are to call laissez-faire approaches to income inequality and social and educational reform, is failing. Most American families are paying a steep price for high and rising income inequality. Our middle class objectively feels stagnation and perception clearly matches the facts. Our poor are falling behind, as well, and their situations become even more dire.

Loss of hope is the emotional equivalent of poverty, and a dangerous condition. Nonetheless, as policy fails to address inequities in education, social injustice, and income inequality, we will be living in an increasingly dangerous world.