Eliminate income, corporate, property, capital gains taxes and social security and you will see this and pretty much every other economic issue in our country vanish. All these other ideas are bandaids that aren't addressing the ROOT problem.

When you tax businesses....which already operate on razor thin margins....they respond one of two ways. They either lower pay or increase prices, or both. This has the net result of people who are now less well paid being unable to afford commercial goods, which are now too expensive. This is why cost of living is so high.

Government is too big and sucks too much wealth out of the economy, while neglecting to perform its antitrust functions so that bankers and politicians can line each others pockets.

The end result is that the people who are the worst off simply give up trying to make it and choose to be numb and carefree. It's not a pretty sight, and it will never change until we fix the economy.