31 votes

America's 1% has taken $50 trillion from the bottom 90%

Posted by Autoxidation
Tags: economics, usa, economy, billionaires, income gap, inequality.wealth, author.nick hanauer, author.david m rolf, source.time, paywall
https://time.com/5888024/50-trillion-income-inequality-america/

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Title
The Top 1% of Americans Have Taken $50 Trillion From the Bottom 90%-And That's Made the U.S. Less Secure
Published
Sep 14 2020

7 comments

  1. [2]
    Comment deleted by author
    Link
    1. Good_Apollo
      Link Parent
      All the data in the world and it doesn’t matter. You can talk to almost anyone and they’ll agree that we get fucked by the rich on the daily...and it’s a timeless problem we don’t do anything about.

      All the data in the world and it doesn’t matter. You can talk to almost anyone and they’ll agree that we get fucked by the rich on the daily...and it’s a timeless problem we don’t do anything about.

      5 votes
  2. Autoxidation
    Link
    A thorough look at just how much wealth inequality has grown in the US in the past several decades. The article (and study referenced) puts numbers to the inequality that every person can...

    A thorough look at just how much wealth inequality has grown in the US in the past several decades. The article (and study referenced) puts numbers to the inequality that every person can understand, instead of just incomprehensible and unimaginably high values like trillions of dollars.

    On average, extreme inequality is costing the median income full-time worker about $42,000 a year. Adjusted for inflation using the CPI, the numbers are even worse: half of all full-time workers (those at or below the median income of $50,000 a year) now earn less than half what they would have had incomes across the distribution continued to keep pace with economic growth. And that’s per worker, not per household.

    And:

    In 2018, the combined income of married households with two full-time workers was barely more than what the income of a single-earner household would have earned had inequality held constant. Two-income families are now working twice the hours to maintain a shrinking share of the pie, while struggling to pay housing, healthcare, education, childcare, and transportations costs that have grown at two to three times the rate of inflation.

    12 votes
  3. [2]
    Muffin
    Link
    I truly feel like the current wealth equality is going to be something future generations look at confused wondering why the 99% would allow this to happen.

    I truly feel like the current wealth equality is going to be something future generations look at confused wondering why the 99% would allow this to happen.

    9 votes
    1. [2]
      Comment deleted by author
      Link Parent
      1. spctrvl
        Link Parent
        I think that's a rather simplistic view of things. The structure of human societies is hugely influenced by their mode of production, and with the paradigm shift brought about by the industrial...

        I think that's a rather simplistic view of things. The structure of human societies is hugely influenced by their mode of production, and with the paradigm shift brought about by the industrial revolution, societies have begun progressing towards greater equality pretty much across the board, something that doesn't really have a parallel in pre-modern history. Personally I think it more likely that we're living in an era of temporary backlash akin to the Bourbon restoration following the French revolution: things look bleak, as though we're condemned to fight the same fights fruitlessly in an eternal recurrence of the same, but we're actually just living through a temporary setback to the project of human liberation. The monarchy came back a couple times, but it was defeated in the end; I think the same will be true of (neo)liberalism and extreme wealth inequality.

        10 votes
  4. [3]
    skybrian
    Link
    The author uses a lot of morality-laden words like “taken” and “shortchanged.” I don’t doubt there is plenty of cheating and stealing going on, but how much needs to be shown, not assumed. Summary...

    The author uses a lot of morality-laden words like “taken” and “shortchanged.” I don’t doubt there is plenty of cheating and stealing going on, but how much needs to be shown, not assumed. Summary statistics about inequality, even if they are dramatic, won’t tell us how it happened.

    6 votes
    1. [2]
      MimicSquid
      Link Parent
      Ok, but not all articles are there for the purposes of documenting the particular techniques used to implement and maintain inequality. Some of them are just there to talk about what happened and...

      Ok, but not all articles are there for the purposes of documenting the particular techniques used to implement and maintain inequality. Some of them are just there to talk about what happened and inspire people to feeling and action. It's hard to get people motivated about an issue if you say that the rich got richer than the rest of us through a combination of labor-unfriendly govermental policy and monopoly/monopsony control implemented through a process of regulatory capture. Most people's eyes glaze over at that point, and that's just how it is. If we want change, we need to inspire people to want change, and that doesn't come from detailed documentation of the procedure.

      14 votes
      1. skybrian
        Link Parent
        In that case it seems like they don’t know whether they want to do reporting or advocacy? Judged as advocacy, throwing in some adjectives is pretty minimal effort. They could tell stories, cut...

        In that case it seems like they don’t know whether they want to do reporting or advocacy? Judged as advocacy, throwing in some adjectives is pretty minimal effort. They could tell stories, cut most of the statistics, and add a call to action.

        3 votes