As I and other sociologists and economists have been saying for quite some time, wealth and class inequality in the U.S. has been getting worse. It’s one thing for us academics to point this out and to “sound the alarm” about its likely consequences for American society, but that does not automatically mean that “ordinary” Americans would listen or even agree. But as the Pew Research Institute reports, perhaps that is starting to change -- more and more Americans now recognize that our country is increasingly being split between the haves and the have-nots:

Over the past two decades, a growing share of the public has come to the view that American society is divided into two groups, the “haves” and the “have-nots.” Today, Americans are split evenly on the two-class question with as many saying the country is divided along economic lines as say this is not the case (48% each).

In sharp contrast, in 1988, 71% rejected this notion, while just 26% saw a divided nation. Of equal importance, the number of Americans who see themselves among the “have-nots” of society has doubled over the past two decades, from 17% in 1988 to 34% today.

As this accompanying table shows, this increase in the number of Americans saying that the country is increasingly divided between haves and have-nots is true all across the social, demographic, and political spectrum, although not surprisingly, there are gaps between particular groups, such as Democrats and Republicans, even though the latter have seen increases in this perception.

So when academics, ordinary Americans, economists like Alan Greenspan, and even President Bush himself increasingly agree with one another that class and wealth inequality is getting worse (when he made a speech to Wall Street CEOs in February 2007), the question now becomes, what are we going to do about it? Or will it just be business as usual and we as a society sit by and let the gap widen even more?