Before the recent financial crisis, politicians on both sides of the aisle in the United States egged on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, the giant government-backed mortgage agencies, to support low-income lending in their constituencies. There was a deeper concern behind this newly discovered passion for housing for the poor: growing income inequality.
Since the 1970’s, wages for workers at the 90th percentile of the wage distribution in the US –such as office managers – have grown much faster than wages for the median worker (at the 50th percentile), such as factory workers and office assistants. A number of factors are responsible for the growth in the 90/50 differential.
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Related book: Fault Lines: How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy
Related speech (from 2005): The Greenspan Era: Lessons for the Future
