In 2023, the United States had the highest level of income and wealth inequality of all the developed nations of the world, with the bottom 50 percent of workers controlling only 2 percent of the nation's wealth overall. While wealth inequality has been a core political and economic issue in America from the very beginning, each generation also grapples with emerging ideas about how to address this perennial economic justice issue and, in 2023, as inflation and rising costs of living brought this issue to a head again, economists, politicians, and American citizens were increasingly asking if radical solutions might we warranted in order to expand access to the American Dream.

This volume of Reference Shelf mirrors the National Debate Topic for 2023 and introduces the idea of wealth distribution through tax restructuring, regulations on corporate profits, minimum wage laws, and more radical potential solutions like the establishment of a universal basic income. Articles from American periodicals, blogs, and magazines introduce readers to the various aspects of this debate and will tie the income inequality debate of the 2020s to the historic American struggle for economic equity.