(RNS) What does it look like when the richest 5 percent of Americans grab 82 percent of economic growth while the middle class loses ground?

For one, a surge in diaper rash. According to Advertising Age, parents are economizing by changing their babies’ diapers less frequently, as shown by a 9 percent drop in disposable diaper sales and a 3 percent rise in diaper-cream sales.

It looks like boarded-up stores in even the moneyed Upper East Side of Manhattan, and entire strips of closed shops in Upstate New York towns. It looks like empty parking lots at shopping malls and car dealerships devoid of customers.

It looks like “For Sale” signs on lawn after lawn as retired men risk heart attacks to mow suburban lawns that they had hoped to leave behind when younger families bought their homes.

It looks like $350,000 condos in South Florida that are now worth $90,000, and a once-prosperous town where one in five homes are vacant, and small towns across the nation where meth labs are the only growth industry.

It looks like long lines of the unemployed showing up for job fairs. It looks like New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg warning that job riots might lie ahead.

It sounds like the story being whispered anxiously among aspiring professionals: at one law school, the hallway chatter is that only 10 percent of last year’s class could find a job. The master’s degree is the new bachelor’s degree, say worried students, because competition for jobs is so extreme.

Extreme wealth gaps look like the “Closed” signs on the doors of libraries and museums, cutbacks in performance schedules at orchestras and theaters, and maintenance being deferred at churches.

It sounds like the rage roaring at Tea Party gatherings, as people who know struggles firsthand can’t bring themselves to blame the wealthy who bankroll their cause. Instead they shout against a black president and the notion — as old as America — of people helping other people.

When money flows to a handful and they spend it on extravagant living — “trickle down economics” being an utter fraud — misery rolls downhill. It picks up steam until 15 percent are living in poverty; one in six American adults can’t find work or gave up looking; one in six U.S. children lacks adequate food; basic services are cut; one in three non-elderly citizens lacks health insurance; and “survival” is no longer just a television theme.

Meanwhile, politicians do everything possible to keep wealth from becoming the campaign issue it ought to be. Under the table, they serve their wealthy patrons by trimming budgets at regulatory agencies that might require ethical and legal behavior. Meanwhile, they denounce any attempt to hold the wealthy to the same tax rates as middle-class taxpayers.

There is, however, one bit of hope: After decades of avoiding the gospel that Jesus proclaimed — which was about wealth and power — church leaders are stirring to action. Bishops in Alabama, for example, are fighting to stop a punitive anti-immigration law. Some megachurches are turning their formidable energy toward justice ministries. United Methodist Bishop Will Willimon, whose words carry national heft, said he had enough of Christians being silent while a few pursue “patriotic extravaganzas.”

Moreover, Congress gets little approval for its solicitous treatment of the wealthy. According to a recent poll, most Americans think millionaires should pay at least their share in taxes.

This is what desperation looks like.

(Tom Ehrich is a writer, church consultant and Episcopal priest based in New York. He is the author of “Just Wondering, Jesus” and founder of the Church Wellness Project. His website is http://www.morningwalkmedia.com. Follow Tom on Twitter @tomehrich.)