President Biden, Bernie Sanders, AOC and others are missing the opportunity to inform the public and offer solutions.
The first article shows that most Americans believe the economy is rigged. (They are right. It is rigged.)The second article shows that the news media is silent on talking about this.
Three Americans have as much wealth as the lower 160 million. One family in 6 is food insecure.
The 2023 update of the World Inequality Database includes new findings for North America and Oceania: The United States (US) remains an outlier of the region: more than 20% of US national income is going to the richest 1% of the population (and nearly 50% to the top 10%).
Income disparities are now so pronounced that America’s richest 1 percent of households averaged 104 times as much income as the bottom 20 percent in 2020, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Consider these findings from a 2014 study: Asked what they view as an ideal pay ratio between CEOs and unskilled workers, Americans pointed to a ratio of 7-to-1. The real ratio at the time? 354-to-1. Meanwhile, Americans thought that the actual ratio was more like 30-to-1, about an order of magnitude off from reality.
There’s no way to get to Americans’ preferred level of equality without a massive redistribution of income. But is the public going to push for this sort of redistribution if media distract them from the topic, or if a lack of coverage results in them not even recognizing the extent of inequality in the first place?
I encourage you to read both articles.
Many Americans Believe the Economy Is Rigged
Inequality: The Biggest Story Corporate Media Isn’t Covering
For media outlets owned by the wealthy, there’s obvious utility in directing the conversation away from inequality and toward other concerns.
Sincerely,
Ed