Fast Company, September 14 2020, ‘We were shocked’: RAND study uncovers massive income shift to the top 1%
The Rand Report reveals the grave inequality between the median worker and the top 1%. This stark inequality must be addressed from taking the median pay of $50,000 to $100,000, the amount the median worker deserves to be making. This inequality is linked to decades of failed federal policy decisions, the deterioration of the minimum wage and and shift to corporate culture over the interests of the workers.
A new analysis by the RAND Corporation examines what rising inequality has cost Americans in lost income—and the results are stunning.
A full-time worker whose taxable income is at the median—with half the population making more and half making less—now pulls in about $50,000 a year. Yet had the fruits of the nation’s economic output been shared over the past 45 years as broadly as they were from the end of World War II until the early 1970s, that worker would instead be making $92,000 to $102,000. (The exact figures vary slightly depending on how inflation is calculated.)
The findings, which land amid a global pandemic, help to illuminate the paradoxes of an economy in which so-called essential workers are struggling to make ends meet while the rich keep getting richer.
