<P> It is claimed in a 2015 study by Princeton University researchers Angus Deaton and Anne Case that income inequality could be a driving factor in a marked increase in deaths among white males between the ages of 45 to 54 in the period 1999 to 2013 . </P> <P> Paul Krugman argues that the much lamented long - term funding problems of Social Security and Medicare can be blamed in part on the growth in inequality as well as the usual culprits like longer life expectancies . The traditional source of funding for these social welfare programs--payroll taxes--is inadequate because it does not capture income from capital, and income above the payroll tax cap, which make up a larger and larger share of national income as inequality increases . </P> <P> Upward redistribution of income is responsible for about 43% of the projected Social Security shortfall over the next 75 years . </P> <P> Disagreeing with this focus on the top - earning 1%, and urging attention to the economic and social pathologies of lower - income / lower education Americans, is conservative journalist David Brooks . Whereas in the 1970s, high school and college graduates had "very similar family structures", today, high school grads are much less likely to get married and be active in their communities, and much more likely to smoke, be obese, get divorced, or have "a child out of wedlock ." </P>

Which of the following asian countries has been a dominant economic force for over two decades