The much-anticipated recommendations for a post-2015 agenda report is bold and full of optimism, as my Oxfam colleagues acknowledge (a welcome treat in an otherwise uncertain era). I especially like the authors’ certainty that we can eradicate extreme poverty from the earth by 2030.

The new goals also specifically address a number of challenges left out of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) 13 years ago, which signals to me that world leaders are really listening (a welcome, and unfortunately too uncommon, occurrence). Toward that end, the report acknowledges the interplay of conflict, violence, sustainability, governance, urbanization, and inclusive growth as not silos; but rather as a constellation of interdependent issues that must be addressed to create a more prosperous and healthy world for everyone.

Now that I’ve gushed, let me raise a serious critique about how the report addresses inequality.

Despite a growing global consensus that income inequality must be halted, the High-Level Panel did not generate targets for inequality reduction. Instead, reducing inequality is claimed to be imbued across all the goals. The Panel claims, rightly, that inequality is a national issue. For sure, solutions to inequality must happen within the cultural, political, economic contexts of countries. However, though solutions need to be tailored nationally, that doesn’t mean we can’t insist on global targets. There’s still plenty of time to develop what targets could look like. Others will agree and disagree, but I think excluding the idea this early on is premature and lacks creativity.

Further, there’s very little in the report to help countries think about ways to reduce inequality. Unfortunately, the report falls back on a tired narrative of economic growth as a be-all solution.

Who defines the post-2015 agenda? Infographic ‘Defining the post-2015 agenda’ by The Broker. View it interactively: http://post2015.thebrokeronline.eu/

This answer reflects 15-year-old thinking that’s inappropriate for post 2015 world. For instance, in the report there’s a lot of talk about inclusive growth, which inherently reduces inequality, but there’s no suggestion for how to make growth inclusive, only talk about the need to increase productivity.

Worse, the parts on inequality and growth lack any mention of the role of government. As we know, it’s committed governmental intervention and political will making reductions in inequality possible among the few countries where it’s decreasing. Along these lines, there’s no mention of policies aimed toward inequality reduction, including stronger social insurance, more efficient taxation, and cash transfers to the poor. Last, there’s a few lines on the need for deregulation, which makes perfect sense in terms of curbing corruption. However, there should equally be language about how the deregulation of labor standards over the past 30 years has contributed to growing inequality.

With regard to measuring inequality, the report encourages countries to use income quintiles. I’m happy to see an endorsement for looking at how income is distributed. Yet, as we know, in many countries the severity of inequality is between the very, very top 1-5 percent and the rest. Therefore, the Panel should encourage countries to take data collection more seriously to gain a more fine-grained understanding of the differences between the very top and the very bottom. One way to start down this path is encouraging countries to utilize the Palma measure of inequality, which is the ratio of income between the top 10% and the bottom 40%.

I’ve said it once. After reading the report, I’ll say it again. It’s time to move the discussion from absolute to relative gains.

Andrew L. Yarrow is a senior research advisor at Oxfam America who studies inequality and low-wage work in the US.

Americans are struggling. The middle class is disappearing. Younger generations may not do as well as their parents.

None of this is news. Yet, behind the widespread recognition that our economy remains sour well into the “recovery” is the troubling reality that 1 in 3 Americans—more than 100 million people—struggle to make ends meet, living in poverty or “near poverty,” based on income thresholds set by the Census Bureau.

While there is much talk about the dangers of our nearly $17 trillion federal debt, there is little public discussion of the even greater economic crisis that consigns 50 million people to poverty and tens of millions more to low-wage jobs that barely lift them out of poverty. That is why Oxfam America has launched Voices on US Poverty, an initiative intended to stimulate discussion about US poverty. Essays from more than two dozen writers, which are being published in news media throughout the country, consider the specific challenges facing poor families and children, immigrants, minorities, and the working poor, as well as the broader nature of economic injustice. They bring such perspectives as economics, theology, journalism and social activism, and offer ideas on how to truly fix our economy in ways that benefit all Americans.

Maj. Gen. Roger R. Blunt

Maj. Gen. Paul D. Monroe Jr.

“There are clearly moral and economic problems when millions of Americans are desperate for work and unable to meet their families’ basic needs,” Maj. Gen. Roger R. Blunt and Maj. Gen. Paul D. Monroe Jr., two military leaders participating in Oxfam’s initiative, write.

“A free-market system that does not provide opportunities for all of us to succeed undermines one of our most convincing arguments against totalitarian regimes and state-run economies that often oppose our interests abroad,” they say.

What does it mean to be poor? Wealth and poverty are relative terms that vary greatly over time and by country. The World Bank defines poverty as “pronounced deprivation in well-being.” This can mean that people are unable to meet basic human needs (housing, food, clothing, health care), but in the US it can also mean that they struggle to stay afloat with jobs that pay just a few dollars above the US$7.25-per-hour minimum wage, with no benefits or job security. These are not the desperately poor in developing countries who live on less than $2 a day, but they are American men and women and families who can barely afford a cheap apartment and groceries, who patronize pawn shops and payday lenders, who can’t afford to get sick, and who are likely to have more debt than savings. Government benefits and charity help them—somewhat, but not enough to enable them to lead decent lives.

The numbers are chilling:

• One in six Americans lives below the federal poverty line, with incomes less than $11,722 a year for an individual and $23,497 for a family of four.
• The number of people in poverty is the highest in the 53 years that statistics have been collected, and the poverty rate has risen every year since 2006.
• Another one-sixth of Americans lives in near poverty, with incomes between the poverty level and twice the poverty level.
• About 6.6 percent of Americans, or 20.4 million people, live in severe poverty, with incomes less than half of the poverty threshold, or about $5,800 for an individual and $11,700 for a family of four.
• Forty-four percent of children live in poverty or near poverty.
• More than half of African Americans and Hispanics have incomes below 200 percent of the poverty level.

The picture looks even worse using an alternative measure of poverty developed by the National Academy of Sciences and the Census Bureau. Under this new Supplemental Poverty Measure, which takes into account regional differences, health care, housing, payroll tax and other costs, as well as government benefits. (See comparison of the measures below.) The number of Americans with incomes below twice the poverty level shoots up to about 150 million, or half the entire population.

“Poverty is about power, not scarcity,” Ray Offenheiser, Oxfam America’s president writes. “As Americans, we believe that our nation must lead. Poverty and inequality, and the social exclusion they breed, are wrongs to be righted, whether they occur in sub-Saharan Africa, South Asia, or the United States.”

Here are the facts:

Income inequality in the US continues to worsen. While earners at the very top claim greater shares of the country’s income distribution, shares among the rest are shrinking.

A recent analysis by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston suggests incomes for the bottom 90% only grew by $59 between 1966 and 2011 (inflation adjusted). Over the same period, average incomes for the top 10% rose by $116,071. The top 1% saw their share grow by $628,817. And the top 1% of the 1%? They saw their share grow by $18,362,740.

Here’s a visual courtesy of Johnston: If a $59 boost is equivalent to an inch, then the incomes of the top 10% grew by 168 FEET! The top 1% grew by 884 feet, and the cream of the crop – the top 1% of the 1% – saw an increase of 4.9 miles (that’s 310,464 feet). I attempted to plot these distances on the graph below. However, it’s largely unreadable because the cream of the crop dwarfs even the 1% as a whole. (If you look close though, you can sort of see the other distributions.)

And this trend is becoming worse.

Despite the fifth year of post-financial crisis recovery, inequality is growing. The first two months of 2013 saw median incomes drop by 1.1%, to $51,404, moving it 5.6% below where it was in June 2009 (from $54,437 at the start of the recovery). Since 2000, Americans have seen the median income drop nearly 9%.

At the other side of the income spectrum, a different story has unfolded. Since 2009, while the bottom 90% saw their incomes shrink, the top 10% of earners took a whopping 149% of the post-recovery growth! How is that possible, you ask? Because the incomes of the bottom 90% shrank. The top 1% captured 81% of the gains, of which more than half went to the top 1/10 of the 1%, and 39% of the gains to the top 1% of the 1%.

“Ponder that last fact for a moment,” says Johnston. “The top 1 percent of the top 1 percent, those making at least $7.97 million in 2011, enjoyed 39 percent of all the income gains in America. In a nation of 158.4 million households, just 15,837 of them received 39 cents out of every dollar of increased income.”

We’ve got more questions than answers.

The dangers of growing income inequality are now widely recognized. Yet, there’s little dialogue regarding how to reverse the tide, especially in the US.

At issue is a fundamental question:

How do we recast the American economy so that it generates broad-based growth, as opposed to merely great growth at the very top, and flat (or even regressive) growth for everyone else?

Oxfam is still trying to identify the best policy solutions to help curb inequality in the US, and we’re interested what our allies, adversaries, and the blogosphere have to say about the following possibilities:

1)      Target the wealthy. Make corporations and rich people pay their fair share.

2)      Gain greater access to social services for the very poor.

3)      Strengthen organized labor.

4)      Raise the minimum wage.

5)      Improve education.

6)      Clean up America’s legislative and regulatory bodies, which are too corrupted by wealth.

7)      Focus on creating more incentives for an environment of inclusive growth.

I offer these to stimulate thinking, not as a be-all-end-all list. So what’s missing? Which of these or other policy responses may prove best to reverse the US’s growing inequality? We want to hear from you!

There is big debate going about what should happen when the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expire in 2015.

I spent a day in New York recently talking about how the successors to MDGs could incorporate goals around inequality.  Other people are following the post-2015 debate closer than I am.  And others know more about inequality.  But I’m interested in how reducing inequality can be included in the next round of “post-2015” goals, and thereby be established as one of the goals of humanity.

When the current MDGs expire, most people assume that the world – via the UN – will embrace a new set of goals, and that they will look something like the existing MDGs.  For inequality, there are a few options, including:

(1) a stand-alone goal on inequality;
(2) integrating inequality indicators in other goals; or
(3) finding a more symbolic or aspirational way to support reducing inequality, without making it a measurable commitment.

It’s worth noting that some goals, like ending extreme poverty or ensuring 100% of children are enrolled in quality schools, are universal and inherently support greater equality.  To some extent, the more ambitious the goals, the more likely they are to help reduce inequality.

But there’s an argument for including a goal (or goals) on inequality in their own right, not as a secondary or incidental benefit of other goals.  For one thing, a stand-alone goal makes clear what the value-statement is and would be a powerful driver for action.

There are serious technical questions about how you could do this.  The standard GINI indicator is widely used, but has flaws that can obscure important aspects of inequality.  Other methods have also been proposed.

While I’m focused on inequality of income, or perhaps wealth, other dimensions of inequality are also important and could make alternative or complementary goals, e.g. inequality of geography, gender, or ethnicity are important and salient in different contexts.

Technical questions have technical answers.  The bigger challenges lie in the politics.  There’s a presumption that a stand-alone inequality goal is a non-starter and would be blocked by the powers that be.  Indeed, the gossip mill reports that when inequality has been proposed in the High Level Panel discussions, the UK Prime Minister has flatly refused to consider it.  But he isn’t the decider.  Or is he?

It’s depressing that the High Level Panel may neglect inequality, but there are plenty of other stakeholders and intervention points.  For example, you can have a say in the U.N. global survey for citizens. (Consider writing in “inequality” as a priority.)

The resistance of some key leaders doesn’t square with the reality that inequality rates very high as a public concern, in countries north and south, rich and poor.

It’s easy to understand why the one percent might not like all this attention to inequality,  and also why they might oppose setting an objective to reduce it.  But why would everyone else?  And why would political leaders like Cameron oppose it?

Unless they cared more about the super-rich than everyone else?

Is it better to gain absolutely or relatively?

For example, free trade agreements promise all members economic benefits (absolute gains); although some members will benefit more than others (relative gains).

In terms of poverty, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are a lesson in absolute gains. In sheer numbers, we’ve halved the world’s population living below the $1.25/day poverty line, and millions more joined the ranks of an emerging global middle class.

Yet, the victory of absolute poverty gains masks the pernicious relative inequalities that have grown alongside poverty reductions.

In many countries, poverty reduction and economic growth were unequal. In China, for example, the urban poor along the industrial coast made much greater gains than those in the vast, rural interior. In other places, prejudices and discrimination excluded groups from the benefits of growth and social services because of gender, race, ethnicity, and religion. Globalization and growth accelerated the creation of new, exclusive classes of upper middle and high income earners. Yet, the impact escalated prices on food and essentials, leaving the near poor vulnerable to slipping back below the poverty threshold.

To the right of the tennis courts and swimming pools, is Paraisópolis, a favela or shanty town, outside of São Paulo, Brazil. Translated, its name is Paradise City. Source: Google Maps http://bit.ly/11tbM3X. You can see another view of the area by photographer Tuca Vieira here: http://bit.ly/W7TODA

As we gear up for a post 2015 agenda, our generation is in a unique historical position. Eradicating global poverty is no longer a fantasy. It’s within our reach. However, the next challenge is reducing chronic inequalities between those subsisting just above the poverty line, and those securely apart of the middle class, or higher.

As the UN’s High Level Panel meets in Monrovia this week to discuss the post 2015 agenda, let’s laud the MDGs for helping to deliver the absolute gains made eradicating poverty.

But, let’s not allow world leaders to shy from the difficult challenge of creating relative gains for those heretofore excluded from economic and social opportunities.

Andrew L. Yarrow is a senior research advisor at Oxfam America who studies inequality and low-wage work in the US.

What do high Gini coefficients and diabetes, regressive taxation and cardiovascular disease, and low minimum wages and respiratory ailments have to do with each other? More than most people—even physicians and economists—may think.

It’s not news that economic inequality in the United States has sharply increased during the last 30 years. It’s also not news that super-sized soft drinks, the easy availability of assault weapons, and the lack of health insurance for 49 million people are tragically cutting many American lives short.

What could be big news is that inequality in the United States may be a factor contributing to Americans’ poorer health, especially compared to Western Europeans, Japanese, Canadians, and Australians.  According to a massive new report by the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine, “U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health,” the United States ranks dead last among 17 rich countries in life expectancy and at or near the bottom in nine key health indicators, ranging from infant mortality, obesity, and heart disease to homicides, chronic lung diseases, and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).

Table courtesy the paper's authors.

These international health rankings look remarkably similar to inequality rankings by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). Denmark, Norway, and Sweden hover near the top with the best health outcomes and the least social inequality; France, Germany, the Netherlands, and Canada are in the middle of both rankings. The US and Portugal are at the bottom.

Among the 17 countries studied, the United States now has the greatest disparity in wealth between the richest 1 percent of households, whose $16.4 million average net worth is 288 times that of the median household. The US also has the lowest male life expectancy and the lowest probability of its citizens surviving to age 50. Likewise, average incomes of the top 1 percent are more than 70 times higher than those of the poorest fifth of Americans—much greater than in Western Europe or Japan. And finally, the US has the dubious distinction of having the highest rates of infant mortality, STDs, and deaths from car crashes and gun violence.

Table courtesy the paper's authors.

Even fatal illnesses that our state-of-the-art medicine might be controlling, such as heart and lung diseases, are more likely to kill Americans than they are to kill citizens of all but one other country in the study. And the gaps have been widening, as America has been slipping farther behind other developed countries in health outcomes during the last 30 years.

Some might chalk this up to the fact that, prior to Obamacare, the US has had the highest proportion of people without health insurance. Others, pointing to the fact that the poor tend to be less healthy, would be right to note that the US has the highest poverty rate of the countries studied.

Yet, neither lack of health insurance nor poverty fully accounts for America’s miserable health ratings. Even well-to-do, white, college-educated Americans with health insurance fare less well than their counterparts in almost every other rich country.

While the report devotes only a paragraph to the role of high economic inequality, other researchers—notably Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, authors of The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better—argue that highly unequal income distribution harms all members of society. They posit that social stress, status anxiety, social competition, and lack of trust born of inequality lead to poorer health.

“Shorter lives and poorer health will ultimately harm the nation’s economy as health care costs rise and the workforce remains less healthy than that of other high-income countries,” concludes the authors of the National Research Council and the Institute of Medicine report.

Moral arguments against excessive inequality have recently been supplemented by macroeconomic evidence that inequality hinders economic growth and contributes to greater economic volatility. Now, we may add that inequality is medically harmful. This, in turn, brings the argument full circle.