From the folks at TED, here’s a powerful video:
Nick Hanauer is a rich guy, an unrepentant capitalist — and he has something to say to his fellow plutocrats: Wake up! Growing inequality is about to push our societies into conditions resembling pre-revolutionary France. Hear his argument about why a dramatic increase in minimum wage could grow the middle class, deliver economic prosperity … and prevent a revolution.
On June 29, 2015, Brendan Duke with the Center for American Progress wrote the following:
New statistics confirm what middle-class Americans have known for years: The economic recovery barely applies to them. University of California, Berkeley, economist Emmanuel Saez has updated his frequently cited income data and the picture they paint of the recovery is as predictable as it is discouraging. As of 2014, the top 1 percent of Americans have seen 58 percent of the gains in the economic recovery, while the average real income of the bottom 90 percent has grown just 1.6 percent since the recovery began in 2009.
It has not always been this way. These developments have been a natural experiment in trickle-down economics—the theory that tax cuts, deregulation, and the destruction of basic labor protections would unleash a wave of economic growth. The experiment has failed.
See data on the impact of the trickle-down experiment on income growth.
