Inequality for All is kind of like An Inconvenient Truth if Al Gore were approximately four-fifths his height and the environment were the economy. Both documentaries aim first to distill highly complex societal maladies into digestible graphics and memorable stories. In this respect, the film’s creator Robert Reich finds success. Unfortunately, like Gore’s Truth, Inequality for All ends up being as much a victory lap for its star as it is a case for a more just economy.
Robert Reich is many things: the author of 15 published books, a professor at UC Berkeley, and Secretary of Labor in Clinton’s first term. The man has an incredible presence on screen. He’s honest, witty, humorous, convincing, and knowledgeable.
Despite being a remarkably accomplished man, at one point, Reich earnestly questions if he has failed in his mission. In that moment, his fight for equality transforms into something both real and personal.
Through the documentary, Reich hopes not only to expose the massive income inequality in America, but show its catastrophic effects as well. Inequality for All does this through both personal encounters and clear, illustrated statistics. However, Reich doesn’t always showcase people whose stories ring true with the documentary’s mission. He interviews a man who pulls in an eight-figure salary as the head of a pillow-making company, asking him about his business. Yet it’s unfair at best to have this man give insight on what the middle class needs in the current economy.
Another man interviewed is one of Reich’s former students and an ex-manager of a failed Circuit City. His struggle to educate himself and land a better job gives a personal face to the documentary’s statistics. Nonetheless, it’s the woman in the back of the story whose struggle is more endearing. The man’s wife is shown adding up her family’s expenditures, and, even when cutting back as much as possible, she finds that her family hardly has enough money to make it through the day.
While these glances into working and middle class life give heart to the documentary, the most effective means used to convey income disparity are the statistics and charts weaved throughout. The median income of males has remained stagnant for the past eighty years, while spending and the wealth gap have both increased. Yet people haven’t noticed this trend because the middle class keeps compensating as the gap grows wider. Women have joined men in the workforce to supplement family incomes, and now Americans work 300 hours per year more than any other country.
One of the most sobering realities is that the United States ranks 64th in terms of inequality worldwide, placing our country just above Uruguay. In the “land of opportunity,” that’s not something to be proud of. Even Great Britain, known for class rigidity, has better economic mobility than the United States.
These statistics are frightening, especially to college students who will soon be entering the workforce. So why isn’t the government swiftly responding when people are taking a stand?
Part of the problem is that the income gap is nothing new to Americans. Reich shows that it has been so present in recent history that people have come to accept inequality as a fact of life. Reich takes on the massive task of stripping off our blindfolds and initiating a real change but, unfortunately, he falls short.
Reich does a brilliant job of bringing some of today’s injustices to light in a clear, understandable manner. But, in the end, the film’s simplicity is also its downfall. Reich presents little information not already common knowledge to informed progressives, and he fails to mention many less-accessible ideas about wealth inequality, the impact of race, and the downfalls of the Clinton administration.
Even so, Inequality for All is an effective pop-doc that has the power to change uninitiated minds. Show it to your grandparents next time they bellyache about taxes.
