Spokane-area businesses tend not to get a lot of public credit for it, and perhaps appropriately so in the spirit of anonymous charitable giving, but we at the Journal see examples daily of the different ways in which many of them are striving through philanthropic efforts to improve the quality of life here.

This issue and other recent issues of the Journal include stories detailing some of the ways in which that’s happening, such as through collaborative programs aimed at helping at-risk elementary and middle-school students in low-income neighborhoods.

One specific example, described in a story in this issue, involves Spokane nonprofit At the Core’s three-year-old A Bite 2 Go program, which provides weekend food packages that are sent home with kids from needy families deemed to be “food insecure.”

The list of businesses and organizations supporting that worthy effort includes the likes of Moss Adams LLP, Wendle Motors Inc., Avista Corp., Umpqua Bank, U.S. Bank, CashLINQ Group, Spokane Teachers Credit Union, Windermere Real Estate, McKinstry Innovation Center, Physical Therapy Associates PS, Jones Dentistry PS, and Rockwood Retirement Center.  

The publicized programs, though, are just the tip of the iceberg.

 At least in part, those continuing grassroots efforts are helping to blunt the harsh impacts of income disparity here, if not its systemic causes.

That thought comes to mind following the unusual warning last week by Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen that economic inequality is widening nationally, which she suggested is threatening America’s longstanding identity of being a land of opportunity.

 An Associated Press story said Yellen, speaking at a conference in Boston on economic opportunity, cited estimates that income and wealth inequality “are near their highest levels in the past hundred years.” The gap between the rich and everyone else shrunk slightly during the Great Recession, but since then has accelerated, the article quoted her as saying.

Yellen’s pointed comments on economic inequality were a surprising, but refreshingly candid public departure for the top executive of the U.S. central bank.

We’ve seen plentiful evidence of those challenges here, particularly when contrasted with the sharp economic resurgence occurring on the other side of the state, which has been aided by some big gains in key industries. The unemployment rate in Spokane County has fallen to a much-improved level of around 6 percent, but—as the Journal also reported this summer—the county might need until 2016 just to gain back all of the jobs it lost in 2009 and 2010. That’s aside from stagnant wage growth, the large number of part-time workers who want full-time jobs, and so on.

While that gradual and spotty recovery continues, it’s encouraging to see many businesses here seeking so determinedly, and largely behind the scenes, to provide a helping hand to some of the most needy in our community.