Poor People's Campaign Is The Angry Response To Inequality America Needs approve

["Dave Farber" <farber () gmail com>]

Begin forwarded message:

> From: Dewayne Hendricks <dewayne () warpspeed com>
> Date: May 30, 2018 at 7:51:29 AM EDT
> To: Multiple recipients of Dewayne-Net <dewayne-net () warpspeed com>
> Subject: [Dewayne-Net] Poor People's Campaign Is The Angry Response To Inequality America Needs
> Reply-To: dewayne-net () warpspeed com
>
> Poor People’s Campaign Is The Angry Response To Inequality America Needs
> By Leo W. Gerard
> May 26 2018
> <https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-gerard-poor-peoples-campaign_us_5b086698e4b0fdb2aa538846>
>
> For the past half century, Americans have allowed the wealthy to get away with economic murder. Income inequality has 
> risen to pre-Great Depression levels. Compensation for CEOs skyrocketed while wages for the rest stagnated. The 
> wealthy received fat tax breaks even as workers got a pittance. Just this month, America’s high rollers bought dozens 
> of paintings at prices tens of millions higher than anticipated during auctions at hoity-toity Christie’s and 
> Sotheby’s.
>
> And all of this has occurred with barely more than a peep of protest from the populace, no more than a few here 
> today, gone tomorrow Occupy Wall Street sit-ins. 
>
> This month is not, however, business as usual. Two Mondays ago, a bunch of dedicated rabble-rousers launched a new 
> Poor People’s Campaign. Thousands demonstrated in Washington, D.C., including members of the union I lead, the United 
> Steelworkers. The group, led by the Rev. William Barber II and the Rev. Liz Theoharis, plans actions in 30 states 
> over 40 days. This past week, dozens of Poor People’s Campaign activists were again arrested in Washington, D.C., as 
> they demanded restoration of the Voting Rights Act. 
>
> The campaign is dedicated to the idea that “people should not live in or die from poverty in the richest nation ever 
> to exist.” Its revival could not be more urgent or timely.
>
> The original Poor People’s Campaign was the vision of Dr. Martin Luther King, who wanted to expand the fight for 
> civil rights to include a movement against the indignities of poverty across all racial lines. Dr. King was 
> assassinated before he formally launched the campaign, but his supporters took up the cause beginning with an 
> encampment in Washington, D.C., in 1968. 
>
> Fifty years later, income inequality is worse. The poverty rate declined from 1968 through 1975 then remained fairly 
> steady since, though it is higher now than in 1975. Deep poverty has increased. According to the U.S. Census, 43 
> million Americans live in poverty. The Institute for Policy Studies, a progressive think tank, estimates that there 
> are 140 million Americans who are either impoverished or so low-income that they are unable to routinely afford food, 
> clothing and utilities. Dr. King would be appalled.
>
> The United Way tracks this latter group, which they refer to as ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed). 
> These are Americans who work hard and are above the formal poverty line but who live paycheck to paycheck and 
> experience a major financial crisis when a car breaks down or a child falls ill. 
>
> NPR found such a couple in Kansas City, Missouri. Terrance Wise works for $10.25 an hour at McDonald’s. His fiancé 
> gets $12 an hour as a home health care worker. Still, Wise told the NPR reporter, he skips meals as the couple 
> struggles to support their three daughters.
>
> Full-time workers suffering from hunger can be explained by this: The portion of national income that goes to workers 
> has declined. It was 64.5 percent in 1973. Now, it’s 56.8 percent. For the bottom half of all earners, their share of 
> income declined from 20 percent in 1980 to 12 percent in 2014.
>
> Meanwhile, the numbers are great for the richest. The top 1 percent got 12 percent of income in 1980. They took 20 
> percent in 2014. For the richest of the rich, the top .001 percent, the boost is staggering. Their incomes rose 636 
> percent in that same period.
>
> This is reflected in the CEO-to-worker pay ratios that federal legislation required corporations to disclose 
> beginning this year. The worst so far is Mattel, where the CEO took home $31.3 million, or 4,987 times the 
> corporation’s median worker’s pay. That suggests that if 4,986 Mattel workers got together, they couldn’t do as good 
> a job as Margo Georgiadis did, even though toy sales continued to slump under her leadership, and the board of 
> directors dumped her earlier this year.
>
> Similarly, the CEO at Gap made $15.6 million, which was 2,900 times the pay of the clothing company’s median worker. 
> Like Mattel, the Gap board of directors ditchedits CEO this year for poor financial performance. But before that, 
> through quarter after quarter of sales declines and store closings, the board of directors decided that CEO Jeff 
> Kirwan was more valuable than 2,899 Gap employees put together.
>
> The CEO-to-worker pay ratio list is full of such examples. Corporate boards of directors apportion an excessive 
> amount of pay to the top, even when the top bungles badly. That’s one way income inequality is sustained and worsened.
>
> [snip]
>
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