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+18 +1
More income inequality means fewer items in grocery stores
Even before COVID-19 and resulting shutdowns created gridlock for some global supply chains, the assortment at many neighborhood supermarkets was dwindling. The cause was not a lack of supply, though, but rather a lack of demand created by a widening income gap in the US, the researchers report.
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+2 +1
If Worker Pay Had Kept Pace With Productivity Gains Since 1968, Today's Minimum Wage Would Be $24 an Hour
In such a world, a full-time minimum wage worker would be earning $48,000 a year in the United States... If the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation since 1968, it would be close to $12 an hour today, more than 65 percent higher than the national minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. While this would make a huge difference in the lives of many people earning close to the national minimum wage, it is actually a relatively unambitious target.
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+2 +1
Study: Inequality Robs $2.5 Trillion From U.S. Workers Each Year
Every few months, some group of socially conscious number crunchers will remind Americans that a tiny elite is binge-eating the nation’s economic pie while the rest of us plebeians fight over table scraps. Journalists will then aggregate eye-popping statistics and edifying charts, progressives will share these over social media, adorned with red-faced (and/or guillotine) emoji — and the moral arc of history will carry on bending toward neofeudalism.
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+10 +1
America’s Dire Inequality Demands a New Conceptual Framework. This Economist Has One.
In a new book from Cambridge University Press, Lance Taylor reveals that wage repression -- far more than monopoly power, offshoring or technological change -- is driving rising inequality.
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+27 +1
Worries grow over a K-shaped economic recovery that favors the wealthy
Worries of a K-shaped recovery are growing in the alphabet-obsessed economics profession. That would entail continued growth, but split sharply between industries and economic groups.
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+4 +1
The Pandemic Benefit Seems so Great Because Actual Wages Are Insanely Low
At the end of last week, the $600 federal unemployment insurance supplement expired after a congressional deadlock on passing a new stimulus bill, leaving millions of laid-off workers without income that was helping them support themselves and their families.
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+9 +1
Amid pandemic, wealthy U.S. families approved for government loans
Private investment firms that manage the fortunes of wealthy individuals and their kin were approved for millions of dollars in taxpayer-funded relief loans designed to help small businesses weather the coronavirus lockdown, according to a review of recently released government data.
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+3 +1
Every aspect of the coronavirus pandemic exposes America’s devastating inequalities
A month after being declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization, the coronavirus has caused deaths in every state in America. It has taken the lives of celebrities like John Prine as well as local grocery store workers, transit operators, and other service employees. Tom Hanks has shared his thoughts on quarantine, and so have teens on TikTok. Millions of Americans of all walks of life have been ordered to stay at home, with no clear end in sight.
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+3 +1
When school is online, the digital divide grows greater
Like many students around the world, Nora Medina is adapting to online learning. But Medina, a high school senior in Quincy, Washington, who also takes classes at a local community college, faces an additional challenge: She doesn't have reliable Internet service at home. She lives 7 miles outside of town where she says neither cable nor DSL Internet is available.
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+41 +1
Not all young people are 'digital natives' – inequality hugely limits experiences of technology
We found that a lack of critical skills about the online environment matched up with lower levels of education and employment.
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+4 +1
High-income people in the US keep marrying each other, and it’s exacerbating inequality
The top 20% of American households have gone from making 43% of all US income in 1968 to 52% in 2018, according to the Pew Research Center, and the trend doesn’t look likely to stop any time soon. There are a variety of reasons for the increase. Tax policy, the hollowing out of middle-class jobs, and the rising financial returns on college education compared to a high-school education have all contributed. Another meaningful reason: How Americans choose their partners.
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+24 +1
How Coronavirus Is Exposing America's Inequality Crisis
There are many things that worry Fina Kao about working in a busy donut shop in an age of fear about a spreading virus. The elderly customer who shuffles across the brown linoleum floor of the shop, orders a glazed donut, and then coughs. The parents sitting at a table sharing a breakfast sandwich as their small child touches the tables and the floor and the drinks fridge with her dirty fingers.
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+19 +1
Welfare surveillance system violates human rights, Dutch court rules
A Dutch court has ordered the immediate halt of an automated surveillance system for detecting welfare fraud because it violates human rights, in a judgment likely to resonate well beyond the Netherlands. The case was seen as an important legal challenge to the controversial but growing use by governments around the world of artificial intelligence (AI) and risk modelling in administering welfare benefits and other core services.
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+16 +1
How $98 trillion of household wealth in America is distributed: "It's very depressing"
If a pie represented the wealth in the United States, nine pieces, or 90% of the pie, would go to the wealthiest 20% in the country.
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+13 +1
Make us pay higher taxes, millionaires and wealthy celebrities demand
A group of billionaires, millionaires and wealthy celebrities are demanding to pay more tax because they are among "the most privileged class of human beings to walk the Earth." More than 120 wealthy celebrities and business figures have signed an open letter, urging their peers around the world to call for tax increases to address economic disparities across the globe.
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+16 +1
This is what the hours after being deported look like
Luz María Hernández gazes blankly across the shaded courtyard, clutching a cellphone in one hand and a sodden handkerchief in the other. Less than 48 hours ago, Hernández, 45, was deported to Tijuana after 25 years as an undocumented migrant in southern California. Her five children, aged three to 23, were born in California, and they now have to live without their mother.
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+15 +1
People no longer believe working hard will lead to a better life, survey shows
A growing sense of inequality is undermining trust in both society's institutions and capitalism, according to a long-running global survey. The 2020 Edelman Trust Barometer - now in its 20th year - has found many people no longer believe working hard will give them a better life. Despite strong economic performance, a majority of respondents in every developed market do not believe they will be better off in five years' time.
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+18 +1
New study finds most Americans don’t really care about inequality
Rich Americans are getting richer, poor Americans are getting poorer, and middle-class Americans don’t really care much either way. A survey released today, conducted by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Harvard School of Public Health, interviewed a sample of 1,885 nationally representative adults to gauge their experiences and thoughts on income inequality.
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+1 +1
The Ultra-Wealthy Who Argue That They Should Be Paying Higher Taxes
Abigail Disney remembers the moment, two decades ago, when she no longer wanted to fly on her family’s private plane. Disney is the granddaughter of Roy O. Disney, who founded the Disney company with his younger brother, Walt, in 1923, and her father was a longtime senior executive there. Abigail’s parents owned a Boeing 737, one of the largest private-aircraft models on the market, and they let her use it for family trips.
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+19 +1
Class warfare, inequality board game 'Kapital!' sells out in French stores ahead of Christmas
A new French board game illustrates modern wealth inequality by forcing players to fight each other as they struggle to be accepted by the rich.
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