The History of the Phrase The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Poorer

I hereby declare that I'm not running this exponentially contrived phrase into the ground any farther than it already has been. During an argument about the economic divide in the world, saying this statement will probably make the person you're arguing with roll his or her eyes from here to China (where it probably also gets an eye roll from there to here) and perhaps just turning and walking away knowing you're one of the most contrived debaters that person has ever met. Yeah, well, stop that person before he or she disappears into the sunset, because you can convince them of the phrase's utter truth by its rich history that's much more compelling than just being a line from an old Tin Pan Alley song. And, as my quest usually goes, I'm going to debunk the notion that the phrase is verbatim from that much-covered 1920's song called "Ain't We Got Fun."

While our Founding Fathers undoubtedly understood the economic divide from Europe, they felt that the privileged few who ran the new country were entitled to monetary awards considering their intelligence and hard work put into making America what it is. The poor in early America didn't initially like the idea, yet went along with the concept for the most part without heading to D.C. and lighting all the buildings on fire. We should be reminded, though, that the economic divides were just as wide in those days as they are now--perhaps even worse. None of the Founding Fathers made a peep about those realities, though...or at least no attributable quotes.

It wasn't until the Presidency of Andrew Jackson when you could find a quote through an American President acknowledging that there was a serious disparity and growing disillusionment between the poor and the U.S. government. When Jackson sent an extended message as a veto to Congress on bringing down the corrupt Bank of the United States in 1832, he derided the rich who were controlling the purse strings and squeezing the little guy. In his veto message, Jackson managed to be the first to phrase at least the first half of our star phrase--mainly by stating that the rich were getting richer and the potent were getting more powerful.