Well beyond its impact on individuals and families, the submerged state exacerbates economic inequality by promoting some entire sectors of the economy over others, at government expense. In delivering subsidies to particular industries and creating incentives for people to participate in specific market activities, its policies protect and enhance profit-making capabilities in those areas. From 1980 until the current recession, the core sectors that it nurtures–finance, insurance, and real estate–outpaced growth in other sectors of the American economy. The fortunes of these industries emanated not from “market forces” alone but rather from their interplay with hidden policies that promoted their growth and heaped extra benefits on them. Suzanne Mettler, The Submerged State
