Sanders: US has to reduce income inequality

Independent US Senator Bernie Sanders who announced his bid for the White House last month has called for action to reduce widening income inequality, saying the United States is unable to feed its children because of this problem.

In an interview with CNBC on Monday, Sanders said that the wealthiest Americans must pay more taxes, adding that he was willing to sacrifice economic growth in order to decrease the wealth gap between the rich and poor.

“You can't just continue growth for the sake of growth in a world in which we are struggling with climate change and all kinds of environmental problems,” he said.

“You don't necessarily need a choice of 23 underarm spray deodorants or of 18 different pairs of sneakers when children are hungry in this country,” he added.

The US economy plunged into the Great Recession in December of 2007. Nearly 9 million people lost their jobs over the next two years. The recovery over the past seven years has been weak and the country’s job growth erratic and uneven.

According to a study by Harvard University, the growing income inequality in the US between the richest Americans and the middle and lower classes is "unsustainable" and may worsen.

The study, released in September last year by the Harvard Business School and titled "An Economy Doing Half its Job", highlighted problems with the widening US wealth gap, education system, transport infrastructure, and the effectiveness of the political system.

Sanders, 73, announced on April 28 that he was running for the White House as a Democrat, providing Hillary Clinton with her first official rival for the Democratic Party’s nomination.

The Vermont senator said wealthy Americans who “hustle money” and spend “hundreds of dollars for dinner” cannot understand the way the poor struggle to make both ends meet.  

“That's the world that you're accustomed to, and that's the world view that you adopt,” he said.

“You're not worrying about a kid three blocks away from here whose mom can't afford to feed him. So yes, I think that can isolate you — that type of wealth has the potential to isolate you from the reality of the world.”

Sanders has been a forceful voice in the Senate against money in politics, economic disparity and other such ailments afflicting the United States.

He has suggested that an important point of his campaign would be to stand against income inequality.

"This campaign is not about Bernie Sanders," he said announcing his presidential bid. "It about a grassroots movement of Americans standing up and saying: ‘Enough is enough. This country and our government belong to all of us, not just a handful of billionaires.’”

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