Oren M. Levin-Waldman is professor of public policy at the Metropolitan College of New York and the author of “Wage
Policy, Income Distribution, and Democratic Theory.”

Over the past four decades, the United States has seen middle-class wages stagnate and income inequality rise. Increasing income inequality is a problem because it reflects the decline of the middle class and the disappearance of middle-class jobs. But it also threatens the survival of a democratic society.

As income inequality has increased, civic participation has decreased, according to the current Population Survey’s Civic Participation files for 2008–2010. More specifically, as the country plunged into recession, participation decreased even more, especially among low-income workers. Between 2000 and 2010, for example, inequality in household income rose 5 percent, but 48 percent of that increase occurred between 2008 and 2009 alone.

Within the top 20th percentile of income distribution, the mean income increased by 26.7 percent, while the mean incomes of those at the bottom 20th percentile increased by only 21.4 percent. And yet, between 2008 and 2009, the mean incomes of those at the bottom of the income scale actually decreased by 2.6 percent, while mean incomes of those at the top increased by 0.8 percent.

The only way income inequality can decrease is if those with the lowest incomes see a higher percentage increase relative to those at the top. Meanwhile, civic participation among those in households earning more than $100,000 a year was considerably greater than civic participation among those in households earning less than $30,000 a year. Civic participation, however, especially during the recession, increased dramatically as individuals moved from households of less than $30,000 a year to those between $30.000 and $59,999 a year.

As the recession continued, civic participation also decreased among middle-income class households, but remained virtually unchanged among higher income households. 

This information suggests that a national wage policy designed to raise family income from below the poverty level to even the next range above it is bound to increase civic engagement dramatically. Data also show a wage policy that boosts wages will also shore up the middle class because of the ripple effects through the wage distribution. 

Democracy requires the maintenance of a broad middle class. But a wage policy that enables individuals to demand more goods and services because of greater purchasing power also can serve as the foundation of a jobs policy. It is unfortunate that in the debate between the left and the right over taxes and regulations that discussions of potentially effective public policy have been lost.