Economists at the Harvard-based research group Opportunity Insights estimate that the highest-earning quarter of Americans has been responsible for about half of the decline in consumption during this recession. And that has wreaked havoc on the lower-wage service workers on the other end of many of their transactions, the researchers say.
“One of the things this crisis has made salient is how interdependent our health was,” said Michael Stepner, an economist at the University of Toronto. “We’re seeing the mirror of that on the economic side.”
As income inequality has grown in America, so has inequality in consumption. That means that when the rich spend money, they drive more of the economy than they did 50 years ago. And more workers depend on them.