By Bob Schildgen

It was a strange experience recently, watching Judy Woodruff of PBS News talk to a group of
people in Milwaukee. She had a mixed bunch, right-wing, liberal, and middle-of the road. They
all spoke frankly on various topics, including some who bitched about economic difficulties.

These I found most interesting, because while they had cash shortages, none of them
mentioned how much money they actually earned, or complained about their wages. And
Woodruff failed to ask anyone about their earnings, which seemed quite weird, and, well, um,
negligent. I mean if you don’t earn enough, isn’t the next obvious question why this is the case
and how much more do you need? Tell me why you can’t manage to haul in sufficient funds to
comfortably cover your expenses? Are you a hopeless spendthrift who squanders every last
penny on eating out three times a day, or on boozing, gambling, whoring, shelling out for
alimony, paying medical bills, or sunk in an expensive mortgage and stuck with extravagant car
payments?

Or are some people simply not paid enough? Surely this most basic idea should have been
addressed!
But it wasn’t, which leads to the basic question of why? There is actually little attention
dedicated to the very simple question of earnings, an area where the contrasts can be truly
staggering. For example, the average lawyer’s salary as of 2022 was $135,740. while the top
25% raked in $208,980. Even the lowest-paid 25% of layers made $94,440. By contrast, farm
worker’s average salary is $33,482 per year, assuming they work 8-hour days yearround. Clearly
a grotesque injustice the minute you realize which group is more essential to your survival.
While this basic question of earnings gets ignored, we hear a lot of bitching about all kinds of
goodies doled out to low-income people, including welfare, of course, but also cheap medical
care, unemployment compensation cheating, subsidized housing, free school lunches, and in
some places, even the audacious folly of rent control. But all these attempts to repair a system
that is fundamentally unjust end up creating hostility to poor people, leading to well-known
whining about shiftless welfare moms, lazy parasites, unscrupulous hustlers, cynical chiselers,
disgusting leeches, etc.

Yet many good-hearted liberals continue to advocate for all these save-the-poor programs,
while ignoring the most basic problem, which is quite simply the rotten wages paid to millions
of people, some of whom live in states where the minimum wage remains stuck at a
measly—truly dismal— $7.25 an hour! We even see editorials claiming that hiking these wages
would be unfair to young workers, because it discourages businesses from hiring them. Of
course, it discourages businesses. Anything that forces them to make less profit is bound to br
discouraging. It is far easier to train kids to accept low wages than to pay them decently.
Because they are young, low pay trains them to accept exploitatiion.

While it might make liberals feel good about their advocacy for the poor, the approach simply
keeps an unjust system staggering along, allowing them to feel righteous while avoiding the
most basic and obvious problem: the hideously unfair distribution of the immense wealth
generated by the working class in the United States.

The only solution to this persistent problem is to face the most basic fact, and advocate for
equitable pay and benefits for all workers, not simply the elite. A simple look at the statistics
reveals the horror of the problem of income distribution. Check out these basic numbers:

Top 20% has over $100 trillion in assets
The second 20% has $23 trillion in assets
The third 20% has $12 trillion in assets
The fourth 20% has $8 trillion in assets
The fifth20% has $5 trillion in assets
So, the top 20% enjoys twice the assets of all the rest of the country or some 80% of the
population. The average wage nationwide is around $62,000, while the income of the top 1% is
more than 10 times higher, at $$786,000. These are absolutely staggering differences, and not
the only revealing ones. Some 37% of seniors are totally dependent on Social Security. Surely
this is no fault of their own, because they had to have been employed to receive the benefits.
They obviously failed to earn enough to set aside for retirement.
It seems like the only time this frightening issue gets seriously discussed is when a labor union
goes on strike. Then we primarily hear ] about the poor employer’s misery, while the union is
blamed for greed.

But things may be changing. Consider that almost 70% of those surveyed say they have a
favorable view of unions. Only 23% claimed they disapprove of unions. There has not been such
strong support for unions since the 1950s, when more than 30% of U.S. workers were in unions,
compared to only 10% today. From 1950 t0 2000, even the percent of skilled workers In unions
dropped from about 55% down to less than 20%. Therefore, it is clear that the time is now
perfect for an expansion of unions. But the resistance of employers is a very powerful force.
Industry is far more mobile than in the past, so the mere threat of a company relocating can
stifle any attempt at unionization. It looks like tough times ahead for labor, with more wealth
continuing shift up to the top.

photo: Amazon Workers organize