Does your Member of Congress support teenage pregnancies - drug abuse - and violence??

Last week - Canadian Members of Parliament brought up in important issue in their House of Commons...wealth inequality. A motion was agreed upon across Party lines that read:

"This House notes the findings...that societies with smaller income differences between rich and poor have fewer health and social problems, such as teenage births, violence, mental illness and drug abuse; further notes that such societies have higher levels of trust between citizens and more social mobility; and therefore encourages the Government to promote policies that reduce income inequality."

In other words - they're going to do something about the richer getting richer and the poor getting poorer.

So isn't it about time we do the same??

In 2007 - researchers Richard Wilkerson and Kate Pickett published a book titled:.

"The Spirit Level: Why equal societies almost always do better". The book was based on decades of data - where they looked at nearly 2 dozen developed nations on the planet - and compared every US state against the others - and studied wealth inequality gaps. And what they found is - the more unequal a nation - or even a state is - the bigger the gap between the rich and the poor - then the worse its social ills like teen pregnancy - drug abuse - and violence are.

In nearly every single instance - the higher the wealth inequality - then the bigger the problems.

So where does the US rank?

Well...Wilkerson and Pickett look at Japan - Sweden - Finland - Norway - Germany - Spain - France - the Netherlands - Italy - Australia - Denmark - Belgium - Switzerland - Austria - Greece - Canada - Ireland - Israel - the UK - New Zealand - and Portugal. And what they found is that the US is by far and away the most unequal - we have the biggest gap between the rich and poor of all these other nations. And because of that - we lead the way in problems.

Take infant mortality - WE are the very, very worst when it comes to how many failed births there are a year - far more than any other nation studied.

Take imprisonment rates - again - WE are the very, very worst with a far higher percentage of people serving in prison than any other nation.

Take teenage birth rates - WE - again - blow other nations out of the water on how many kids get pregnant in our communities.

Take homicides - guess what - WE win that too - with far more murders than any other nation looked at.

And take drug abuse - and boom - there WE are near the top with the most drug addicts.

All of this - all of these problems - because we've let the rich in the nation go wild with massive tax cuts and deregulation - and at the same time let the poor sink deeper and deeper into desperation by busting up unions and cutting away the social safety nets put into place by FDR and LBJ.

But perhaps this is the most important data set of all...social mobility. Wilkerson and Picket looked at other nations to see how often poor people moved up to higher wealth classes - in other words - how easy is it to come from a poor family and became middle class or even wealthy on your own. This is essentially the basis of the American Dream - the idea that anyone can make it regardless of where you came from.

And when it comes to social mobility - when it comes to the American Dream - America finished dead last - the lowest social mobility of all the other nations studied. The American Dream no longer exists because of extreme wealth inequality in America.

We can't continue on like this.

Our Government - YOUR Member of Congress - must acknowledge soon that it's wealth inequality that's the biggest threat to America today.

It's not Al Qaeda - it's not our debt - it's not illegal immigration - and it's not taxes - it's wealth inequality.

Canada gets it - the rest of the developed world gets it - but we don't.

So right now - call your Member of Congress - call your Senators - and tell them one thing...

It's the wealth inequality, stupid!!

That's The Big Picture.