Last year’s Occupy Wall Street movement turned the world’s attention toward the suffering caused by an economic system that benefits only the wealthiest people, or the so-called 1%. But who are the 1%? You will not find their children in our overcrowded public schools that are constantly under financial attack. They also do not ride the bus, and they do not wait beside you in an emergency room for a health care system that’s disintegrating. In other words, there is a ruling class in this country that lives much differently than the rest of us. This is their system but we’re forced to live in it.
Who Is In the 1%?
The majority of the 1% make their money by owning and running big businesses and corporations, or by providing services to them.
- 31% are executives, managers, or supervisors for corporations.
- 15.7% are owners and managers of health care and pharmaceutical companies.
- 13.9% are high-paid employees of banks and financial firms.
- 8.4% are lawyers who provide services for big companies.
- 4.3% simply don’t work.
- The remaining 26% range from celebrities, sports figures, to scientists.
What Do They Own?
- The top one percent of Americans own 40 percent of all financial wealth.
- 1.6% of Americans receive $100,000 or more a year in inheritance— They’re born rich and guaranteed to stay rich.
- The 1% in the U.S. owns and controls nearly over 50 percent of the world’s stocks and mutual funds.
- The 1% in the U.S. controls half of all the stocks and mutual funds.
We Outnumber Them and We Do the Work!
The problem is not these individuals. Who they are personally doesn’t matter. Their system is the problem. It allows a tiny minority of society to own everything, while the rest of us do the work that makes this society function. And we pay the price for their profits.
It is absurd that we have to accept a system that only benefits the wealthy. The fact is that they are outnumbered – we are the majority and we do one hundred percent of the work.
