Reflections on Thanksgiving and the distribution of wealth

I grew up in a lower-middle-income family filled with faith, love, fun, responsibility and gratitude. Every Thanksgiving, our family, including my uncles, aunts and cousins, gathered at my grandmother's house. After the men and boys returned from rabbit hunting, all 22 of us would find somewhere to sit for a lunch of turkey with all the trimmings in my grandmother's two-bedroom home with one restroom, which presented some challenges. We watched football, told stories, laughed, and stayed through dinner. Thanksgiving began in the U.S. as a time for family and friends to gather and give thanks for their blessings. Thanksgiving has been easy for me to celebrate. The work ethic our parents instilled in my sisters and me enabled us to work our way through college and benefit from the opportunities provided to a growing middle class. My first 26 years (1947-1973) were lived in the "Age of Shared Growth," when equitable income distribution helped build middle-class wealth. Since 1973, the middle class has experienced significant losses in its percentage of national income and wealth. The wealth of upper-income families grew more than twice as fast as that of middle-income families from 1983 to 2016. In addition, the share of wealth owned by the top 1% rose from 22.8% in 1983 to 30.8% in 2024. For the last 50 years, our economic system has worked very well for wealthy people, not for everyone else. In 1980, President Reagan espoused trickle-down economics, a Republican mantra for years. Data indicates it has not worked. Many label the redistribution of wealth as socialism, terrible, or even evil. They believe that the free market, without government intervention, should determine financial outcomes. They maintain that individual effort produces wealth and should be rewarded. I basically agree. However, that system, when left to itself, has produced child labor, unsafe workplaces, polluted rivers, pay below a livable wage, and business fraud. Enron's inflation of its financial performance to enrich greedy executives resulted in employees and investors losing millions of dollars. Those protesting efforts to create a more equitable approach to income/wealth distribution are often the ones who benefit most from the current model. Every system, from capitalism to communism, has a model for the distribution of income and wealth. I believe capitalism without proper guidelines produces things like an Eastman mechanic struggling to pay for the birth of their child due to decreased health benefits. At the same time, the wealthiest have $50 million weddings. I endorse certain capitalistic principles. However, without paths for everyone to prosper and have upward mobility, our system is not sustainable. If most of our population cannot afford homes, groceries, cars, cellphones, vacations or tickets to U.T. football games, the system will collapse. I'm deeply concerned about the affordability of college. It would be impossible for someone like me to work their way through college today as I did in the late 1960s. College is increasingly available only to students from wealthy homes, meaning many of our greatest minds will not be unleashed to solve future problems and maintain our competitive advantage. We need to change our current system of income and wealth distribution through actions such as a livable minimum wage and tax reform, not a 50-year mortgage. We need policies that reward effort, grow the middle class, and reduce the number of low-income families. It is possible. For example, Norway, a social democracy, has a robust economy, with 95% of companies privately owned. They rank high on economic freedom indices, with an open and flexible business environment. The income difference between the top and bottom 10% of wage earners in Norway is half that in the U.S. Norway distributes wages differently, producing a more equitable distribution of wealth. The higher incomes and, yes, higher taxes enable Norway to provide free college tuition, universal health care, and pensions. These programs are funded by a $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund (equivalent to $340,000 per citizen). In addition, Norway's national debt is only 55% of its GDP, while ours is 125%. They also rank higher than we do on quality-of-life measures, such as health and relationships with others. Their economic system produces excellent results. Most Western European countries and Canada are social democracies. Social Security and Medicare, which 83% of Americans support, are like programs in social democracies. Social democracies strive for a system in which anyone can be rich, but no one is poor. So, Rick, "Why don't you move to Norway?" I love our country and prefer working to make us better. However, we must confront our economic reality. Trump's Big Beautiful Bill increases our national debt by $3.4 trillion over the next 10 years and disproportionately redistributes more wealth to the wealthiest. We are redistributing wealth, only in the wrong direction. Let's seriously evaluate our economic system and learn from those doing it better. This Thanksgiving, I'm inspired to believe we can do better by one of our wealthiest Americans and the words of Christ. Warren Buffett pledged 99% of his fortune to charity, not out of guilt but out of gratitude. He also said: "If you're in the luckiest 1% of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99%." In Matthew 25:40, Jesus also said, "…truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for Me." Rick Toomey, Ed.D., is a former minister, counselor, organizational development consultant, assistant professor, and university department chair for Organizational Development and Training. You can email him at ortoomey@gmail.com.