Good news for the top one percent! Their incomes grew faster than the bottom 99 percent in 43 states and Washington, D.C., between 2009 and 2015. In fact, “The top 1 percent captured half or more of all income growth in nine states. In 2015, a family in the top 1 percent nationally received, on average, 26.3 times as much income as a family in the bottom 99 percent.”
The Economic Policy Institute has a lot more details. The most unequal states are New York, Florida, and Connecticut, where “the top 1 percent earned average incomes more than 35 times those of the bottom 99 percent.” More locally, “Jackson, Wyo.-Idaho was the most unequal metro area, followed by Naples-Immokalee-Marco Island, Fla., and Key West, Fla. The most unequal counties were Teton County, Wyo., New York County, N.Y., and La Salle County, Texas.”
And we’re not far off from making some rather disturbing history:
Overall in the U.S., the top 1 percent took home 22.03 percent of all income in 2015. That share was just 1.9 percentage points below the 1928 peak of 23.9 percent.
Hmm … 1928, huh? What happened next?
● An Obama-era rule strengthened disclosure requirements when companies hired anti-union consultants to squash worker organizing efforts. Of course the Trump administration has killed that rule.
● The architect of a terrifying anti-union legal campaign is also a nominee for a post in the Trump administration.
● New York City is paying $20 million to settle a gender bias lawsuit with city nurses.
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● Behind the campaign to get teachers to leave their unions:
"The day after the decision was out," says Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, groups were already "spamming our members and trying to get them to opt out."
● Fair workweek laws help more than 1.8 million workers.