Issue Position: Income Inequality

Issue Position

In the US, income inequality has grown steadily worse since the 1970s. From 1945 until the mid-1970's, the US economy doubled, and so did incomes. But from the mid-1970's through the present, the US economy doubled again, but incomes barely increased. Today, fully 70% of countries have a more equal income distribution than we have here in the US. In fact, if the US had the same income distribution it had in 1979, each family in the bottom 80% of theincome distribution would have $11,000 more per year in income on average. In 1965, the average CEO made 20 times the average worker. Now the ratio is 300 to 1, meaning the average CEO makes in a day what their workers make in a year. Incomes for the middle class have stagnated; young people have a harder time getting a decent start in the economy and many face crushing student debt; too many people who want full-time jobs can't find them; and low-income people have a very hard time working their way into the middle class.

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