Second Gilded Age

The Second Gilded Age is a proposed time period of United States history said to have begun between the 1980s and 2010s and continued up to the present. The Second Gilded Age is so named for its resemblance to the First Gilded Age of the 1870s to 1890s, a period marked by laissez-faire capitalism, political corruption, and wealth inequality. Historians disagree over what exact time period constitutes the Second Gilded Age, while others argue that no such period exists. The Second Gilded Age has been proposed several times, starting in the late 20th century. Proposed start times include the junk bonds scandal in the 1980s, the dot-com bubble of the 1990s, the collateralized debt obligations of the 2000s, and the 1 percent of the 2010s. These proposals largely agree that wealth inequality and political corruption are as rampant as in the First Gilded Age, due in part to the implementation of neoliberal policies. Other proposals argue that race relations and civil rights comparisons are more apparent. Other authors dispute the characterization, arguing the similarities to the First Gilded Age are merely surface level. These authors claim that the underlying causes of the Second Gilded Age differ from those of the First Gilded Age, and thus the underlying solutions must differ as well.