Falls Church resident Karl Polzer will be hosting a Science, Reason and Religion forum on Sunday, Feb. 18 starting at 12:30 p.m. at the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fairfax (2709 Hunter Mill Rd., Oakton).

Continuing a 40-year trend, America’s wealth and income inequality is deepening. Its middle class is in decline, both in size and economic leverage. Wages have been stagnant and jobs have gone overseas. Life expectancy for people at the bottom is now much shorter than for those at the top. The recently enacted tax reform cuts the corporate tax rate dramatically. Will that provide gains to be shared by all? This talk will explore economic, cultural and political forces driving wealth inequality and make policy proposals that could help move us toward a more inclusive and healthy future.

Polzer is an independent consultant and political economist specializing in long-term care, health care and retirement policy. He has worked for the federal government, think tanks and business associations. In 2015, he founded the Center on Capital & Social Equity, whose goal is to better understand growing economic inequality and advocate for a more inclusive economy. Polzer holds a master’s degree in public administration from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. Before that, as a newspaper reporter, he won several national awards for investigative journalism relating to environmental health and criminal justice.

For more information, visit inequalityink.org.