Wages Are Falling. Wealth Is Surging. No Wonder Americans Are Unhappy.

THE NEW YORK TIMES: As Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire, workers are facing higher prices and fears of A.I.-driven job losses.

Two events from the past week help crystallize this strange, contradictory moment for the U.S. economy.

On Wednesday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the surge in energy prices had wiped out a year and a half of wage gains for the average American worker. On Friday, the public-markets debut of SpaceX made Elon Musk the world’s first trillionaire.

That stark juxtaposition helps explain why many Americans, in survey after survey, say they no longer believe the U.S. economy is working for them. A few people are getting fabulously, unimaginably wealthy at the same time that entire generations of families worry they will never be able to afford to buy a house, raise children or enjoy a comfortable retirement.

“I don’t think the stock market is necessarily causing” Americans’ pessimism about the economy, said Stefanie Stantcheva, a Harvard professor who studies public sentiment. “But I don’t think people are looking at it and are thinking, ‘Great, this means I’m going to do very well, too.’ It’s potentially reinforcing this feeling of ‘I’m falling behind.’”

Inequality is hardly a new feature in America. But the explosion of wealth at the very top is without precedent in U.S. history. At the height of the Gilded Age at the end of the 19th century, the richest handful of Americans had a net worth equivalent to about 3 percent of the country’s annual economic output, according to data compiled by the French economists Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez. Today, the fortunes of the same 0.00001 percent — about 20 individuals — make up roughly four times as large a share, equivalent to 12 percent of annual output.

Other economists, using different methodologies, come up with somewhat different numbers. But hardly anyone disputes the basic fact that the wealthiest few have made extraordinary gains in recent years. » | Ben Casselman | Ben Casselman is The Times’s chief economics correspondent. | Saturday, 13 June 2026

This is clear and glaring proof that Donald Trump is neither fit nor capable to lead the world’s leading and largest economy: the world’s hegemon.

The first lesson for any politician, especially one in a very powerful, leading position is that the economy must work for everyone — for the working classes, the middle classes, and the upper classes. An economy of whichever hue or stripe is always going to be fairer to some than to others. That is an inevitability, regardless of whether the economy is capitalist or socialist. But even so, it behoves politicians to understand that all people must get their fair share, their fair crack of the whip. When the nation’s wealth increases, especially when that increase in wealth is exceedingly substantial, then all should benefit, not just the favoured and blessed few at the top. Allowing such a scenario will be the harbinger of trouble and strife ahead. The people will tolerate this inequality for a while. In the short term, they have to. But their patience will run out at some point as sure as night turns into day.

Donald Trump would be wise to understand this. An ever rising stock market a sound and fair economy does not make! — © Mark Alexander

New York Is Rebounding for the Rich. Nearly Everyone Else Is Struggling.

THE NEW YORK TIMES: The huge income gap between rich and poor in Manhattan is the latest sign that the economic recovery from the pandemic has been lopsided in New York City.

As New York City inches closer to recovering all the jobs it lost during the pandemic, Manhattan — the city’s economic engine — marked a far less encouraging milestone. It now has the biggest income gap of any large county in the country.

Even in a city notorious for tableaus of luxury living beside crushing poverty, the widening gap is striking. The wealthiest fifth of Manhattanites earned an average household income of $545,549, or more than 53 times as much as the bottom 20 percent, who earned an average of $10,259, according to 2022 census data, released earlier this month. Social Explorer, a demographic data firm, analyzed the data for The Times.

“It’s amazingly unequal,” said Andrew Beveridge, the president of Social Explorer. “It’s a larger gap than in many developing countries,” and the widest gulf in the United States since 2006, when the data was first reported. The Bronx and Brooklyn were also among the top 10 counties in the country in terms of income inequality.

It is the latest data to underscore the city’s lopsided rebound from the pandemic. Across the city, wages are up, but mostly for the affluent. Jobs are returning, but many are in low-paying positions. Unemployment is down, but remains sharply higher for Black and Hispanic New Yorkers. The mixed signals highlight a widening chasm: The city is recovering, but many of its residents are not. » | Stefanos Chen | Thursday, September 28, 2023

This Holiday Season, the Poor Buckle Under Inflation as the Rich Spend

THE NEW YORK TIMES: Even if policymakers achieve a gentle economic slowdown, it won’t be smooth for everyone.

November has been busier than expected at the Langham Hotel in Boston as luxury travelers book rooms in plush suites and hold meetings in gilded conference rooms. The $135-per-adult Thanksgiving brunch at its in-house restaurant sold out weeks ago.

Across town, in Dorchester, demand has been booming for a different kind of food service. Catholic Charities is seeing so many families at its free pantry that Beth Chambers, vice president of basic needs at Catholic Charities Boston, has had to close early some days and tell patrons to come back first thing in the morning. On the frigid Saturday morning before Thanksgiving, patrons waiting for free turkeys began to line the street at 4:30 a.m. — more than four hours before the pantry opened.

The contrast illustrates a divide that is rippling through America’s topsy-turvy economy nearly three years into the pandemic. Many well-off consumers are still flush with savings and faring well financially, bolstering luxury brands and keeping some high-end retailers and travel companies optimistic about the holiday season. At the same time, America’s poor are running low on cash buffers, struggling to keep up with rising prices and facing climbing borrowing costs if they use credit cards or loans to make ends meet.

The situation underlines a grim reality of the pandemic era. The Federal Reserve is raising interest rates to make borrowing more expensive and temper demand, hoping to cool the economy and bring the fastest inflation in decades back under control. Central bankers are trying to manage that without a recession that leaves families out of work. But the adjustment period is already a painful one for many Americans — evidence that even if the central bank can pull off a so-called “soft landing,” it won’t feel benign to everyone. » | Jeanna Smialek, Photographs by Tony Luong | Reporting from Boston | Friday, November 25, 2022

‘People Are Tired of Being Ignored While the Rich Get Richer’: Bernie Sanders on Anger and Hope in the US and UK

‘Why, with all this new tech, are we not seeing an improved standard of living?’ … Bernie Sanders at a unionisation rally in Richmond, Virginia. Photograph: Julia Rendleman/Reuters
THE GUARDIAN: The Vermont senator rose from the political margins to become hugely influential within the American left. As he prepares to speak at a London rally, he explains why unions on both sides of the Atlantic must reassert their power

Both are unlikely political sensations who were long consigned to the fringes: Bernie Sanders, an octogenarian US senator who inspired an army of voters far younger than himself; and Mick Lynch, a former blacklisted construction worker and child of Irish immigrants who, as the leader of the Rail, Maritime and Transport Workers union (RMT), shot to national prominence when he humbled hostile but underinformed broadcast journalists. “I think Lynch is touching a nerve,” Sanders says.

The de facto leader of the US left has swung his considerable political heft behind a new campaign – Enough Is Enough – launched to fight Britain’s mounting cost of living crisis, which was founded in part by Lynch and the RMT. It has certainly touched a nerve: at a recent rally in Clapham, south London, many of those who had queued around the block were turned away for lack of space. “‘Enough is enough’, funnily enough, is an expression we use a lot here,” Sanders says. “People are sick and tired of often working longer hours for low wages; sick and tired of their kids having a lower standard of living than them; and they’re sick and tired of billionaires getting richer and richer while they fall behind.

“Why, with all this new tech out there, are they not seeing an improved standard of living? Why not more equality, rather than less equality? Why are living standards deteriorating, not improving? Lynch is asking that, Enough Is Enough is asking that – and it’s hitting a nerve, because people are tired of being ignored while the rich get richer.” » | Owen Jones | Tuesday, August 30, 2022

Wealth Secret of the Super Rich Revealed: Be Born into a Rich Family

THE GUARDIAN: The 10 richest dynasties, such as those behind Walmart and Mars, grew their net worth by $136bn during the pandemic, report finds

Self-made billionaires including Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk made huge profits during the Covid-19 pandemic but a new report shows there’s no beating family money when it comes to getting – and staying – really, really rich.

Ten of the US’s richest families, including the Walmart family and the dynasties behind industries including candy and cosmetics, also saw their assets balloon over the pandemic, with a shared increase in their combined net worth of over $136bn in 14 months, according to a report by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) published on Wednesday.

The report, Silver Spoon Oligarchs, details how these families have not only increased their wealth by billions in the last year, but have also worked to ensure the system supports this exponential growth over decades. » | Amanda Holpuch in New York | Wednesday, June 16, 2021

40 Years after Thatcher: Inequality in the UK – BBC Newsnight

Forty years after Margaret Thatcher came to power, is the UK once again on the brink of a sea change?

In the final of a series of three films about the direction of the UK, our economics editor Ben Chu looks at the issue of inequality.

He visits Cambridge, home to Silicon Fen, and is joined by Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, chief secretary to the Treasury Liz Truss and former Bank of England governor Lord King.

Wealthy Americans Have So Much Money They Don’t Know What To Do With It

According to an infuriating new report by Axios, corporations and the wealthy elite have so much money now that they don’t even know what to do with it. They are running out of stocks to buy back and they don’t have many other investment options, so they end up simply hanging onto their cash. Weren’t they supposed to spend it on workers? Wasn’t that the deal that Republicans told us was definitely going to happen? Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.

Robert Reich in Los Angeles on Income Inequality (2018)

Robert Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and former Secretary of Labor, discussed the state of income inequality, the Trump presidency, the new steel and aluminum tariffs and the promising future of today's high school and college students.

Even for Local Taxes, the Rich Pay Far less Than the Poor

While much attention has been paid to Republican-backed tax cuts for the wealthiest, a new report reveals that even local levies take a greater share of income from the poor than the rich

Many Americans Feel 'Stuck in a Rut' as Economy Improves, But Inequality Grows (2011)

'Inequality Is Bad for Everyone': Robert Reich Fights against Economic Imbalance

Economics correspondent Paul Solman talks to Robert Reich about "Inequality for All," a documentary about the former labor secretary's personal crusade to explain to Americans why everyone should care about the nation's growing economic disparity and divisiveness.

Robert Reich in Los Angeles on Income Inequality

Robert Reich, Chancellor's Professor of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley and former Secretary of Labor, discussed the state of income inequality, the Trump presidency, the new steel and aluminum tariffs and the promising future of today's high school and college students.

Richard Wolff WARNING!! Why American Collapse Is Only Just Beginning, Not Ending

On Contact: The Coming Collapse of the American Economic System with Richard Wolff

On Contact: The Coming Collapse of the American Economic System with Richard Wolff

Economist Richard Wolff discusses the coming economic collapse of the United States of America.

Joseph Stiglitz: "The Price of Inequality" | Talks at Google

Joseph Stiglitz, Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences recipient (2001) , visited Google on June 12, 2012 to talk about his new book THE PRICE OF INEQUALITY: How Today's Divided Society Endangers Our Future.

Inequality: Of The 1%, By The 1%, For The 1%

VANITY FAIR: Americans have been watching protests against oppressive regimes that concentrate massive wealth in the hands of an elite few. Yet in our own democracy, 1 percent of the people take nearly a quarter of the nation’s income—an inequality even the wealthy will come to regret.

It’s no use pretending that what has obviously happened has not in fact happened. The upper 1 percent of Americans are now taking in nearly a quarter of the nation’s income every year. In terms of wealth rather than income, the top 1 percent control 40 percent. Their lot in life has improved considerably. Twenty-five years ago, the corresponding figures were 12 percent and 33 percent. One response might be to celebrate the ingenuity and drive that brought good fortune to these people, and to contend that a rising tide lifts all boats. That response would be misguided. While the top 1 percent have seen their incomes rise 18 percent over the past decade, those in the middle have actually seen their incomes fall. For men with only high-school degrees, the decline has been precipitous—12 percent in the last quarter-century alone. All the growth in recent decades—and more—has gone to those at the top. In terms of income equality, America lags behind any country in the old, ossified Europe that President George W. Bush used to deride. Among our closest counterparts are Russia with its oligarchs and Iran. While many of the old centers of inequality in Latin America, such as Brazil, have been striving in recent years, rather successfully, to improve the plight of the poor and reduce gaps in income, America has allowed inequality to grow. » | Joseph E. Stiglitz | March 31, 2011

'Inequality Is Bad for Everyone': Robert Reich Fights against Economic Imbalance

Nick Hanauer Interview with Cenk Uygur On The Young Turks

Cenk Uygur host of The Young Turks interviews entrepreneur, venture capitalist, activist, troublemaker and self-described “Patriotic Progressive” Nick Hanauer.

Beware, Fellow Plutocrats, the Pitchforks Are Coming | Nick Hanauer

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.