The rich get richer, and the rest of us work harder to make less.
The gap between the super-rich and everyone else has widened in the last 35 years. Today the top 1 percent takes in almost 20 percent of the country’s total income, while owning 35 percent of America’s wealth. This gap is due in large part to one glaring factor: The link between productivity and wages is broken. Through about the late 1970s, workers’ productivity and wages rose together.
After 1979, productivity continued to climb, but workers’ wages haven’t kept up. While wages for workers have fallen behind, the wages of the top 1 percent have continued to climb. Since 1979, the income of the top 1 percent has grown 241 percent, whereas income for the bottom fifth has grown only 11 percent. And CEOs have fared even better: In 2009 CEO pay doubled what it averaged in the ’90s, quadrupled what it averaged in the ’80s, and was about eight times larger than it averaged around the middle of the 20th century.
It’s a good time to be a CEO in our economy, but it’s much harder for most of us: struggling to make ends meet, worrying about the future for our kids and families. We must Reclaim the Promise of economic opportunity for all, a promise our country was founded on. To learn more, visit: