A weekly newsletter from the Institute for Policy Studies |
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It's crunch time on the debt ceiling. If political leaders fail to reach a deal by early June and the government defaults, the many ominous outcomes could include a halt on Social Security checks, a terrifying prospect for millions of seniors.
Most seniors rely on Social Security to pay their most basic bills. But retirees at the top end of our income scale have no such existential stake in the debt-ceiling battle. For decades now, corporate execs have been slashing employee retirement benefits while feathering their own personal retirement nests.
A new report on this repulsive retirement divide — from our Inequality.org team at the Institute for Policy Studies and Jobs With Justice — is garnering tremendous media coverage.
“People’s minds are blown when they see the wage gap between CEOs and workers,” our Inequality.org co-editor and report co-author Sarah Anderson told the Wall Street Journal. “But the gap between CEO and worker retirement benefits is so much wider.”
We have more on retirement benefit disparities — and what we can do to narrow the gaps — here below in this week’s issue.
One last note: Beginning next week, we'll be sending out our weekly newsletters on Wednesday afternoons. Make sure you add us to your "safe senders" list to stay seamlessly receiving our dispatches. And hey, while you're at it, why not forward this issue to a friend? Thanks so much for your support — we'll catch up with you on May 31st.
Chuck Collins and Rebekah Entralgo, for the Institute for Policy Studies' Inequality.org team |
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| INEQUALITY BY THE NUMBERS |
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A Walmart Worker Confronts the Retirement Divide
“I’ll be turning 67 at the end of this month,” writes veteran Walmart worker Cynthia Murray in an exclusive for Inequality.org. “I’d love to be able to retire on my birthday. But even after working for our nation’s largest employer for 22 years, I can’t afford to retire any time soon.”
Murray finds it absolutely appalling that her top boss, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, is sitting on over $169 million in his company retirement account while she’s been able to save very little for what should be her “golden years.”
On top of her job at the giant retailer, Murray is currently serving on the board of United for Respect, a nonprofit advocating for better labor conditions for low-wage workers. What would she like to see McMillon and other CEOs do to narrow the retirement divide?
“They need to raise wages, give us at least two-weeks paid leave, and ensure we have affordable health care benefits,” she writes. “That way workers can stay healthy, put food on our tables, keep roofs over our heads — and save money for retirement.” |
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Let's Narrow the CEO-Worker Retirement Divide
With ordinary workers struggling with rising retirement insecurity, corporate CEOs are enjoying gilded nest eggs. A new report we’ve just released with Jobs With Justice includes staggering statistics on our current staggering retirement divide.
Can you believe, for example, that execs at Walmart, Home Depot, and some 20 other major U.S. companies stand set to receive monthly retirement checks larger than their workers’ median annual pay? Our new report explains how government retirement subsidies factor into these disparities. Unlike ordinary 401(k) holders, top corporate executives can stash unlimited amounts of compensation in exclusive tax-deferred accounts.
“Rather than giving corporate CEOs unfair special retirement tax benefits not available to those they employ,” report co-author Scott Klinger notes in the Guardian, “Congress should eliminate the cap on payroll taxes paid by corporate executives” to help strengthen Social Security for the 40 percent of American workers who have no other retirement income outside Social Security.
More on fixes for Social Security from Klinger, report co-author Sarah Anderson, and researcher Bella DeVaan at the link below. |
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The Two Decades That Created the First Mass Middle Class
In the years between 1940 and 1960, the United States essentially birthed an entirely new social phenomenon: a mass middle class. The share of U.S. households owning their own homes jumped an “unprecedented” 20 percentage points. By the end of that 20-year span, most American families resided in housing they owned — for the first time since at least 1870, for the first time, in effect, since before the Industrial Revolution. What created that awesome moment? Can we recreate it? Inequality.org’s Sam Pizzigati has more.
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PETULANT PLUTOCRAT OF THE WEEK |
A Defeat for Public Schools Has This Billionaire Pleased
This week’s dour deep pocket: Jeffrey Yass, the financial options trader who now ranks as Pennsylvania’s richest billionaire.
What has him sour: The only thing Jeffrey Yass seems to hate more than paying taxes? Public schools. Yass has been, ProPublica points out, the “longtime financial patron” of the Pennsylvania senator who guided into law tax breaks that let companies slash their state taxes “if they give money to private and charter schools.” Before last week’s Philadelphia Democratic Party mayoral primary, Yass plowed over $1 million into a group set up to bash candidate Helen Gym, the co-founder of Philly’s citywide Parents United for Public Education. Those dollars bankrolled a negative ad barrage “against the only candidate in the race with a real vision to invest in Philly’s public schools.” In a local race with a crowded nine-candidate field, that barrage made all the difference. Gym finished third.
The last word: This year’s Philly primary, says Gym campaign manager Brendan McPhillips, shows “how billionaires keep their own taxes low while killing public education funding.” |
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This week on Inequality.org
Rebekah Entralgo, In DeSantis’ ‘Free’ State of Florida, Union Freedom Is Under Attack. A slate of new bills signed by Florida's billionaire-friendly governor will make it harder for public sector unions to collect dues, worsening the state's teacher shortage and public school funding.
Sam Pizzigati, Doing Debt Ceiling Battle the FDR Way. During our last decade’s debt-ceiling brinkmanship, our co-editor recounted how a certain U.S. president used his era’s debt-ceiling debates to advocate for taxing the rich. Elsewhere on the Web
Kalena Thomhave and Omar Ocampo, Private Jets Are Dirty Luxuries for the Ultra Rich. Let’s Tax Them, In These Times. The private jet industry is destroying the climate and intensifying inequality. Rather than providing subsidies, we should tax the hell out of it.
Matthew Cunningham-Cook, Ron DeSantis Is Giving Away Florida Pension Money to Wall Street Donors, Jacobin. The Florida governor has been putting huge sums of state retirement money into underperforming private equity firms that have donated to his campaign efforts.
Adam Lowenstein, The Billionaires Who Are Threatening Democracy, The Atlantic. In his new book, the historian Quinn Slobodian writes about the ideologues who believe that society should prioritize capital, not people. Marianne Guenot, Florida passes bill to prevent billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos being sued if their mega-rockets kill or injure people, Business Insider. The bill comes as more billionaires are trying to make commercial space flight a reality.
Nicole Goodkind, What caused regional banks to fail? Senators blame excessive CEO pay, CNN. “Workers face consequences,” notes Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown, chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, “executives ride off into the sunset.” Malcolm Harris, Doug Rushkoff Is Ready to Renounce the Digital Revolution, Wired. The new digital economy, says this one-time champion of Silicon Valley, has “made a bunch of billionaires and a whole lot of really poor, unhappy people.”
Jake Johnson, 'We Are Not Taxing the Very Wealthy Enough': Runaway Inequality About to Get Worse, Common Dreams. Americans overwhelmingly prefer raising taxes on the ultra-wealthy and huge corporations to making cuts to critical programs like healthcare, medical research, and infrastructure.
Stephen Foley, IRS sets its sights on tax avoidance by the super-rich and corporations, Financial Times. In the U.S. cat-and-mouse game of tax collecting, the cat finally looks set to pounce. Sarah Manavis, Elon Musk and MrBeast are building sinister company towns, New Statesman. We should be extremely wary of the super-rich building “utopias” for their workers. 10 Weird Things Rich People Totally Destroy, MSN. From accessible beaches to backpacker paradises. |
Tiffany Ferguson, luxury doomsday bunkers: an elitist disaster fantasy, Internet Analysis. The video essayist covers the obscene trends in apocalypse prepping among the super-rich.
Climate Emergency Book Series: Chuck Collins, Brattleboro Community TV. 118 Elliot and Everyone’s Books welcomed Inequality.org co-editor Chuck Collins to read from and discuss his hot-off-the-press debut novel Altar to an Erupting Sun, a near-future story that has passionate characters facing climate disruption in the critical decade ahead.
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Della Duncan and Robert R. Raymond, Reclaiming Time with Oliver Burkeman, Upstream. The 4000 Weeks: Time Management for Mortals author weighs in on how time has been “instrumentalized” under capitalism.
Sean Iling, The dark history of Silicon Valley, The Grey Area. Palo Alto author Malcolm Harris joins to discuss the weird history of the city that’s birthed Stanford University, Hewlett Packard, and Theranos — and the model of capitalism that's made an impact across the globe. |
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The House Republican debt-ceiling plan now on the table would leave U.S. economic inequality even worse by reducing funds for IRS audits on the wealthy while slashing social spending. The GOP proposal, as Chuck Marr of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities has tweeted, would “make it harder for some to afford food, to go to the doctor, or to meet basic needs, while making it easier for wealthy people to cheat on their taxes.” We have an interactive version of this chart — and more charts on inequality and taxes — at the link below.
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Inequality.org | www.inequality.org | inequality@ips-dc.org Managing Editor: Rebekah Entralgo
Co-Editors: Sarah Anderson, Chuck Collins, Sam Pizzigati, and Isabella DeVaan Production: Isabella DeVaan |
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