21. Poverty Rates Rose
Thanks to Reaganomics, the 80s was a decade when the rich got richer, and the poor got poorer. Poverty rates skyrocketed, along with the national debt, while corporate bosses found themselves so inundated with money that they didn’t know what to do with all of it.
What exactly was Reaganomics? It was an ill-informed economic theory that said that governments should give big tax breaks to the largest corporations because they would use that money to benefit their employees and supercharge the economy. Even though the idea proved to be a complete failure, it is still the foundation of many economic policies today.