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INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER THE SPIRIT LEVEL ------------------- M ---------------------- Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger 'N, \ ■ • 4 • / • ‘A \ RICHARD WILKINSON and KATE PICKETT Foreword by Robert B. Reich ‘Might be the most important book of the year.’ Guardian (UK) ‘Fascinating and deeply provoking . The Spirit Level does contain a powerful political message. It is impossible to read it and not to be impressed by how often greater equality appears to be the answer, whatever happens to be the question. It provides a connection between what otherwise look like disparate social problems.’ David Runciman, London Review of Books (UK) ‘A compass to rebuild our societies . A shining vision.’ Johann Hari, Independent (UK) ‘A crucial contribution to the ideological argument . It provides a vital part of the intellectual manifesto on which the battle for a better society can be fought.’ Roy Hattersley, New Statesman (UK) ‘I recognize in this book a truth that most of us know in our bones. A fair society is an essential part of our wellbeing.’ Colette Douglas Home, Glasgow Herald ‘Compelling and shocking. All free marketers should be made to memorize it from cover to cover.’ Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Independent (UK) ‘An impressive body of evidence, presented in an easily digestible form . It raises some big questions.’ Will Kymlicka, Globe and Mail (Canada) ‘Brave and imaginative . A far-reaching analysis.’ Michael Sargent, Nature ‘My bet to become the manifesto for the next ten years.’ Richard Gillis, Irish Times ‘A groundbreaking work and one that deserves the widest possible readership.’ Iain Ferguson, Socialist Review (UK) ‘Surprising . Upends the traditional debate about income inequality.’ Peter Wilson, The Australian ‘This is a book with a big idea, big enough to change political thinking . In half a page [The Spirit Level] tells you more about the pain of inequality than any play or novel could.’ John Carey, Sunday Times (UK) ‘The connection [between income inequality and dysfunctional societies] is spelt out with stark clarity in Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett’s remarkable new book, The Spirit Level. Income inequality, they show beyond any doubt, is not just bad for those at the bottom but for everyone.’ Will Hutton, Observer (UK) ‘Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett put forward compelling evidence that income inequalities are at the root of a wide range of health and social problems in society.’ Niall Crowley, Irish Times Weekend Review ‘The evidence, here painstakingly marshaled, is hard to dispute.’ Economist (UK) ‘Many [New Statesman] readers will be inspired as I am by a new book, The Spirit Level . Wilkinson and Pickett compare not only different countries, but also the 50 US states. They show that greater equality benefits not just the poor, but all occupational groups . [The Spirit Level has] lots of graphs but no jargon.’ Peter Wilby, New Statesman (UK) ‘In this fascinating sociological study, the authors do an excellent job of presenting the research, analyzing nuances, and offering policy suggestions for creating more equal and sustainable societies. For all readers, specialized or not, with an interest in understanding the dynamics today between economic and social conditions.’ Library Journal RICHARD WILKINSON AND KATE PICKETT The Spirit Level Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger BLOOMSBURY PRESS NEW YORK • BERLIN • LONDON • SYDNEY Copyright © 2009, 2010 by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett Foreword copyright © 2010 by Robert B. Reich All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address Bloomsbury Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010. Published by Bloomsbury Press, New York All papers used by Bloomsbury Press are natural, recyclable products made from wood grown in well-managed forests. The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental regulations of the country of origin. L i b r a r y o f C o n g r e s s C a t a l o g i n g -I n -P u b l i c a t i o n D a t a Wilkinson, Richard G. The spirit level : why greater equality makes societies stronger / Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett.— 1st American ed. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-60819-036-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) . Equality. 2. Social mobility. 3. Quality of life. 4. Social policy. I. Pickett, Kate. II. Title. HM821.W55 2009 306.01— dc22 2009030428 First published in Great Britain by Allen Lane, a division of the Penguin Group, in 2009 First published in the United States by Bloomsbury Press in 2010 This paperback edition published in 2011 Paperback ISBN: 978-1-60819-341-7 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 Typeset by Rowland Phototypesetting Ltd, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk Printed in the United States of America by Quad/Graphics, Fairfield, Pennsylvania For our parents Don and Marion Chapman George and Mary Guillemard Contents F o rew o rd, by Robert B. Reich ix Preface xiii Acknowledgements xvii Note on Graphs xix PART ONE Material Success, Social Failure i The end of an era 3 2 Poverty or inequality? 15 3 How inequality gets under the skin 3i PART TWO The Costs of Inequality 4 Community life and social relations 49 5 Mental health and drug use 63 6 Physical health and life expectancy 73 7 Obesity: wider income gaps, wider waists 89 8 Educational performance 103 9 Teenage births: recycling deprivation 119 io Violence: gaining respect 129 n Imprisonment and punishment 145 12 Social mobility: unequal opportunities 157 PART THREE A Better Society 13 Dysfunctional societies 173 14 Our social inheritance 197 15 Equality and sustainability 2 17 16 Building the future 235 Postscript - Research Meets Politics 273 The Equality Trust 299 A p p en dix 301 Sources of Data for the Indices of Health and Social Problems 306 Statistics 310 References 312 In dex 343 Foreword ROBERT B. REICH Professor o f Public Policy, University o f California Former U.S. Secretary o f Labor Most American families are worse off today than they were three decades ago. The Great Recession of 2008-2009 destroyed the value of their homes, undermined their savings, and too often left them without jobs. But even before the Great Recession began, most Americans had gained little from the economic expansion that began almost three decades before. Today, the Great Recession notwithstanding, the U.S. economy is far larger than it was in 1980. But where has all the wealth gone? Mostly to the very top. The latest data shows that by 2007, America’s top 1 percent of earners received 23 percent of the nation’s total income—almost triple their 8 percent share in 1980. This rapid trend toward inequality in America marks a significant reversal of the move toward income equality that began in the early part of the twentieth century and culminated during the middle decades of the century. Yet inequality has not loomed large as a political issue. Even Barack Obama’s modest proposal to return income tax rates to where they stood in the 1990s prompted his 2008 Republican opponents to call him a socialist who wanted to spread the wealth. Once president, Obama’s even more modest proposal to limit the income tax deductions of the wealthy in order to pay for health care for all met fierce resistance from a Democratically controlled Congress. If politicians have failed to grapple with the issue of inequality, few scholars have done better. Philosophers have had little to say on the subject. Some who would tax the rich to help the poor frame their arguments as utilitarian. Taking a hundred dollars from a rich person and giving it to a poor person would diminish the rich person’s happiness only slightly, they argue, but greatly increase the happiness of the poor person. Others ground their arguments in terms of hypothetical consent. John Rawls defends redistribution on the grounds that most people would be in favor of it if they had no idea what their income would otherwise be. Nor have economists, whom we might expect to focus attention on such a dramatic trend, expressed much concern about widening inequality. For the most part, economists concern themselves with efficiency and growth. In fact, some of them argue that wide inequality is a necessary, if not inevitable, consequence of a growing economy. A few worry that it cuts off opportunities among the children of the poor for productive lives'—but whether to distribute wealth more equally, or what might be gained from doing so, is a topic all but ignored by today’s economic researchers. It has taken two experts from the field of public health to deliver a major study of the effects of inequality on society. Though Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett are British, their research explores the United States in depth, and their work is an important contribution to the debate our country needs. The Spirit Level looks at the negative social effects of wide inequality— among them, more physical and mental illness not only among those at the lower ranks, but even those at the top of the scale. The authors find, not surprisingly, that where there are great disparities in wealth, there are heightened levels of social distrust. They argue convincingly that wide inequality is bad for a society, and that more equal societies tend to do better on many measures of social health and wealth. But if wide inequality is socially dysfunctional, then why are certain countries, such as the United States, becoming so unequal? Largely because of the increasing gains to be had by being just a bit better than other competitors in a system becoming ever more competitive.

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