Income Inequality and Labor Unions: A Program for Progress
Growing income inequality has become an issue of national concern. The reports are striking: the share of total annual income going to the top 1% of Americans has more than doubled since 1976. In past recessions, incomes drop, but quickly bounce back during recovery. There is no doubt that the economy has been improving; however, wages are not and therefore the inequality gap has not been shrinking. The so-called economic "recovery" of 2009-2011 saw the top 7% of households increase their net wealth by 28%, while the bottom 93% saw a decrease in their net wealth by an average of 4.4%. According to a Pew Research Center study, the wealth gap separating the top 7% from everyone else increased from 18 to 1 to 24 to 1 between 2009 and 2011. The most affluent 7% of households owned 63% of the country's household wealth in 2009. The wealthiest 10% of Americans haven't taken home such a large percentage of all income since 1917, the heyday of the robber barons in the late Gilded Age. A scandalous one in five American children lives in poverty. [MORE]
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