Finance committee  One thing missing in this discussion is reducing income differences before tax. The runaway incomes at the top, which have been driving the widening gap, really reflect a lack of constraints at the top, a lack of democracy. We need to deal with it by legislation, which exists in

Finance committee  I think you're right that the big shift in income distribution has been driven by widening wage differentials—earnings differentials. If you look at the pay gap between CEOs in the top 300 U.S. companies—and these trends are fairly typical of other countries just a bit more exagg

Finance committee  I think there are economies in the administration of health services that are funded out of taxation rather than insurance systems. Certainly, it's a benefit that the coverage is universal. But I think it's important to recognize that there are not strong relationships between al

Finance committee  May I remind you that the rises in income inequality that have taken place in so many of the rich, developed countries has not been driven by changes in education systems. The runaway incomes at the top are a quite separate phenomenon, and that's what has driven the widening inco

Finance committee  Yes. There are much more sophisticated analyses, and many of the analyses have been covered—in as much as 200 papers—in the academic journals on health and inequality and on homicide and inequality. There's massive literature on this, and some of it very sophisticated. What's i

Finance committee  I would like to use this as an opportunity to first emphasize the kind of damage that inequality does to a society. We went through a whole range of outcomes, looking at different levels of health, child well-being, and mental illness, homicide rates, imprisonment levels, teenage

Finance committee  Yes I can, thank you.