We live in the wealthiest country in the World. But who controls it?
It is our labor that creates the wealth of this society. But the corporations and banks and their super rich owners reap the benefits. Their greed has no limits.
While most workers in the U.S. are scraping by and struggling to pay the bills:
- The top 1% own more wealth than the bottom 92%.
- The two richest people in the U.S., Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, now own more wealth than the bottom 40% of Americans combined.
- Between March 18, 2020, and April 12, 2021, while tens of millions of workers in the U.S. lost their jobs and struggled to put food on the table, the wealth of U.S. billionaires increased by $1.62 trillion.
- Fifty Five of the nation’s largest corporations — including FedEx, Nike and Archer-Daniels-Midland — paid no federal corporate income tax in 2020.
The flip side of their wealth is our poverty. As corporations make more profits and the rich get richer, our lives continue to get worse.
- Over 50 million people are currently living in poverty in the U.S. .
- Over 40% of Americans wouldn’t be able to afford $400 for an unexpected expense.
- Over 40 million people in the U.S. experienced food insecurity in 2019.
- Since 1980, workers are producing four times as much but earn about the same pay.
- Most workers are drowning in debt, with the average household owing $145,000.
- There are still over ten million jobs that have been lost since the pandemic began.
- Over 4.4 million people in the U.S. have been out of work for over six months — and are not even counted in official unemployment numbers.
Our work makes this system run and it produces all of the wealth. There is more than enough wealth to guarantee that we all have meaningful work with a REAL living wage. And if there aren’t enough jobs, then hire the unemployed but reduce the hours of work, with NO CUT in pay. We should work to live, not live to work!
