Second Gilded Age

The Second Gilded Age or New Gilded Age is a proposed time period of United States history that is 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.

Those who suggest the U.S. is in a Second Gilded Age say that it started with the implementation of neoliberal policies along with the junk bonds scandal of the 1980s, the dot-com bubble of the 1990s, the collateralized debt obligations of the 2000s, or 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. Others argue that race relations and civil rights comparisons are more apparent.

On the other hand, other authors dispute the characterization, arguing that the similarities to the First Gilded Age are merely surface level. These authors claim that underlying causes of the Second Gilded Age differ from the First Gilded Age, and thus the underlying solutions must differ as well.