The rampant growth of inequality over the past thirty-five years, particularly in the United States, played a major role in causing the Great Recession. The decline in the real wages of working people contributed to a global crisis of overproduction and underconsumption. To sustain their modest standard of living, working families went heavily into debt. Joseph Schwartz (Temple faculty member) speaks in detail of his research and published book, The Future of Democratic Equality: Reconstructing Social Solidarity in a Fragmented United States.