Yellen: "greatly concerned" about income inequality, "declines to offer any policy prescriptons"

Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said she’s “greatly” concerned by the most sustained rise in U.S. wealth and income inequality since the 19th century, while declining to offer any policy prescriptions.

The lower half of U.S. households by wealth held 1 percent of the total last year, according to 2013 data from the Fed Survey of Consumer Finances, while the wealthiest 5 percent held 63 percent, Yellen said today in the text of a speech prepared for delivery at a Boston Fed conference on economic inequality.

“The past few decades of widening inequality can be summed up as significant income and wealth gains for those at the very top and stagnant living standards for the majority,” Yellen said. “It is appropriate to ask whether this trend is compatible with values rooted in our nation’s history.”

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Businesses and inheritances “are less concentrated and more broadly distributed than other forms of wealth, and there is some basis for thinking that they may also play a role in providing economic opportunities to a considerable number of families below the top,” Yellen said.

http://www.businessweek.com/news/2014-10-17/yellen-greatly-concerned-by-widening-u-dot-s-inequality