By Judge Greg Mathis

New data shows that the concentration of wealth among the richest Americans has grown significantly over the last several years; the growth is directly related to President Bush’s tax cuts, which provided large tax breaks for the rich. Additionally, business owners of color, most of them small business owners, have received only minor breaks under Bush’s tax cuts. Most tax breaks for businesses have gone to those who are wealthy andwhite. Bush’s never-ending push for tax cuts seem to all but guarantee that the nation’s rich will only grow more wealth, while the poor and middle class are left to struggle. America has a long legacy of creating obstacles that prevent people of color from building wealth comparable to that of whites and these tax cuts only give us more of the same.

According to a Congressional Budget Office analysis of the latest income tax data, the top 1 percent of households owned more than 57 percent of corporate wealth, up from 53.4 percent the year before. In 2003, the income in the top 1 percent of households ranged from $237,000 to several billion dollars. Two new tax cuts, known as "PEP" and "Pease," that almost exclusively benefit high-income households recently went into effect. These wealthy families already save an average of $103,000 in taxes, thanks to Bush’s previous cuts. These tax cuts ensure that the very rich will keep more of their money, thus increasing their bottom line and their access to the social structures that help grow and maintain wealth: high-quality education and capital to launch and develop businesses among them.

As the wealthy continue to prosper, data shows that the personal wealth of families of color has fallen. Incomes have risen for some, but in the long run, it is wealth, not annual salary, which will have a real impact on the quality of life for not only you, but also for your children. Wealth includes investments in stocks and pension plans and equity in property and other assets that can be used to pay for things like education or retirement.

According to government figures, Black families have only 10 cents in wealth for every dollar white families have. Other data shows that less than half of Black households own their homes, while 75 percent of white households do. Home equity is the leading source of wealth for most Americans.

Economic equality has become one of the key civil rights issues of this decade; the disparities highlighted by Hurricane Katrina only further illuminated the disparity between the have and have-nots. Government policies that continue to widen that gap only serve to force people into a permanent underclass, a segment of society that is becoming harder and harder to climb out of. It’s beyond time for our government to begin thinking about the needs of the “common” man and to stop catering to the wealthy few. If America is to truly live up to its ideals, the playing field must finally be leveled.

Editor’s Note: Judge Greg Mathis is national vice president of Rainbow PUSH and a national board member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.