The widening income gap

The G.O.P’s ability to highjack a labor vote which once made up the Democratic Party’s core is unsurprising in light of the continuing rise of income inequality.

The Federal Minimum Wage has not been increased since  2009… the last time that the Democrats held a working Congressional majority.

And despite periodic increases, the purchasing power of the Federal Minimum Wage peaked in 1968!

While a number of states have enacted laws raising the minimum to as high as $13+/hour, the 2009 Federal Minimum wage of $7.25/hr. is the minimum in 20 states (GA, ID, IN, IA, KS, KY, LA, MS, NH, NC, ND, OK, PA, SC, TN, TX, UT, VA, WI, WY).

The effect is also unsurprising.

Since 1980, income gain for the top 1% is nearly 5 times the gain for the bottom 20%.

The richest 1% now own nearly half of the world’s wealth.

In the depths of the Great Depression, Franklin Roosevelt’s 1935 National Labor Relations Act explicitly granted employees the right to collectively bargain and join trade unions.

When the G.O.P. regained control of Congress in 1946, it passed the Taft-Hartley Act, the so-called right-to-work law, that effectively neutered unions.

Today, America is experiencing a rebirth of organized labor as workers at deep-pocketed multi-nationals including Amazon and Starbucks struggle to regain their American dream.

They deserve our support as voters and as consumers.