Income Inequality

My father was a WWII combat veteran and a machinist who never graduated high school. He made enough money that we were well fed and warm in the winter, and we were happy. He was happy. A big part of why he was happy was because he loved his job. My father was brilliant, and many people felt that he should have gone to college, but I am so thankful that he didn’t. He absolutely loved tinkering around with machines. There are so many professions in which my Dad could have made more money, but he spent his life doing what he loved doing. He was paid enough, but not much. The only people who were impressed by the job my Dad did were his family, his employer and the people who worked with him. But he enjoyed machines so much, and he was so happy with his job: to see him tinkering away at a machine was like watching a little boy play with legos. He was in his element. He loved it: he loved his life. My Dad’s career as a machinist didn’t provide us with a lot of money: it did provide us with a happy father. My Dad was and is a truly great man, and it is such an honor and such a privilege to be his daughter.

My late husband, Robin, didn’t have very much money, either, at least not by the time I met him, lol. In a previous life, in a different country and a different era, Robin actually had been a rich guy: he started several businesses, at least one of which brought in about half a million a year. Like my father, Robin was also brilliant, but he made his share of mistakes and questionable choices along the way. For the first part of his working life, everything Robin touched seemed to turn to gold: he didn’t go to college either, but that never stopped him from making lots of money. In the beginning, anyway. From the time he was around 28 until the age of 40, Robin was making at least a couple of hundred thousand a year, and usually more than that. He took it for granted. Because everything that he had ever touched had turned to gold, he assumed that everything he touched would always turn to gold, and for that reason, he never saved a dime. He blew every cent he made on wild parties, vacations, and fast cars. He did so with the assumption that because money had always come easily to him, that it always would, and it was with that unbelievably over confident assumption that he left a very lucrative career in Scotland to come to America.

For most of his life in America, and for all of our marriage, I don’t think Robin ever made more than 36,000 a year, and most years he didn’t even make that. It wasn’t for lack of trying: Robin was a very hard worker, but he had just lost his midas touch, and I am so eternally grateful that he did. Robin was a salesman and a businessman: I doubt that he derived the same kind of joy from his work that my Dad derived from working with machines, but Robin derived incredible joy from life, and that joy did not depend on him making tons of money. He always said that he came to America because he wanted to be a citizen, not a subject, and he never regretted it. Like everyone who comes here, he hoped to do well financially, but he was ok with it when he didn’t. Like all women, when I married my husband, I hoped that he would do well financially, but I was ok with it when he didn’t, and in hindsight, I wouldn’t have had it any other way, because if Robin had done well financially, I never would have understood how wonderful he really was. After a lifetime of being told that he was the Queen’s subject, he absolutely loved being a citizen of America. Rich citizen, poor citizen, he didn’t care, as long as he was a citizen. He was usually happy, he was usually content, and he was usually at peace-far more so than most people, from what I can tell. We hear so much about the American dream, and a lot of it has to do with money, but for Robin, the American dream had nothing to do with money. For Robin, the American dream was simply about being a free citizen of a free country: for Robin, being an American citizen was a pearl of great price, that he traded all of his money for, and he never regretted it. It is such an honor and such a privilege to have been his wife.

I totally acknowledge that the reason I can be at peace about not having much money is because I have always had a little money. I have never gone hungry, I have never been cold. I know how fortunate I am, and I am not trying to lecture those who have suffered real poverty: I am lecturing those who haven’t, but who are for some reason convinced that they would be happier if they had more money, or more recognition. But think about it. Bill Gates has all the money and all the recognition in the world. Does any woman really want to marry him? Lots of women want his money, but how many really want to be married to him?

Men like Bill Gates are a dime a dozen. Most men don’t make as much money as he does, but America is filled to the rafters with well off men who don’t really offer anything other than money, and many of them are convinced that they would be happier if they had more money. As I am writing this, Bill Gates and thousands like him are selling their souls to China for money, while they turn their noses up at men like my Dad and Robin.

My Dad enlisted to fight in WWII against the wishes of his father. He fought in the Battle of Peleliu. He spent 50 years of his life speaking out against abortion, defending those who cannot defend themselves. Robin left a life of incredible wealth and comfort in Scotland to come to America, simply because he loved America. He loved America so much more than he liked money, and once he was here, he did everything in his power to defend America and to defend freedom. There are those who would say that neither of them lived up to their potential, because both of them, if they had played their cards differently, could have made a lot more money than they did. I could give one damn less. Robin and my Dad were obviously very different, but they had a wonderful relationship with each other. Robin was absolutely distraught at the prospect of losing my father, and Robin’s death was the end of my father. It occurs to me as I write this, that as different as they were, they had one thing in common: they were both great Americans, in very different ways, and for very different reasons, but they were both great Americans, and they both did everything in their power to be great citizens. They both spoke their minds freely, without concern for how much money it would cost them. They were free, and because they were free, I was and am free as well.

Many years ago, I worked as a maid in a relatively wealthy area of Western Mass. I say, relatively, because if you leave out the New Yorkers who own vacation homes here, there is no real money in Western Massachusetts. But, this town is wealthy by Western Mass standards: lots of doctors and lawyers live there. At first, I was excited by the prospect of seeing rich peoples’ homes on the inside, but in every case, every house looked exactly like my parents’ house, with an extra bedroom and one or two more bathrooms. Most of the people who hired us were two income couples, and at the time, I remember being amazed and astounded that some women would spend their lives working so hard in order to have an extra 500 square feet of house. When I met Robin, who was working as a home improvement salesman at the time, he told me that from his perspective, that town was a complete waste of time, because nobody there had any disposable income. They had nice homes, but even on two incomes, they were completely maxed out. I repeat: these were doctors and lawyers, completely maxed out, so maxed out that they couldn’t even afford 10,000 for a new kitchen, and no one would lend it to them, because they were so maxed out. These couples were all making at least six figures, sometimes six figures each, but for what? An extra bedroom? An extra bathroom? I don’t understand. And now, these same people are selling their souls, allowing themselves to be silenced and enslaved, because they can’t bear the thought of living in a house with only one bathroom.

Envy will always be with us, and all of us are guilty of it at different times, in different ways, but in the final analysis, the problem isn’t that American poor people envy the rich. The problem is that as it stands right now, we don’t.