Is a single man largely responsible for America's wealth gap?

How Jack Welch helped create the America of Donald Trump, Jeff Bezos, and Elon Musk

Jack Welch.
(Image credit: Illustrated | Getty Images, iStock, Library of Congress)

The gap between America's rich and the poor — or really, the rich and everyone else — has stretched into a chasm. That's fairly indisputable. The current divergence between the wealthiest Americans and the lower 90 percent of earners began in the late 1970s, after a post-World War II era of rising wages and not-outlandish differences in pay between workers and management.

Income Gap

(Image credit: Pew Research Center)

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Peter Weber, The Week US

Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.