Billionaires up, America down

[C~B~N really likes Holly Sklar's writing. She has
done her research and wields a might pen! The
government ought to listen....]

By Holly Sklar
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune News Service
Copyright (c) 2007 Holly Sklar

When it comes to producing billionaires, America
is doing great.

Until 2005, multimillionaires could still make the Forbes
list of the 400 richest Americans. In 2006, the Forbes 400
went billionaires only.

This year, you'd need a Forbes 482 to fit all the
billionaires.

A billion dollars is a lot of dough. Queen Elizabeth II,
British monarch for five decades, would have to add $400
million to her $600 million fortune to reach $1 billion. And
she'd need another $300 million to reach the Forbes 400
minimum of $1.3 billion. The average Forbes 400 member
has $3.8 billion.

When the Forbes 400 began in 1982, it was dominated
by oil and manufacturing fortunes. Today, says Forbes,
"Wall Street is king."

Nearly half the 45 new members, says Forbes, "made
their fortunes in hedge funds and private equity. Money
manager John Paulson joins the list after pocketing more
than $1 billion short-selling subprime credit this summer."

The 25th anniversary of the Forbes 400 isn't party time
for America.

We have a record 482 billionaires -- and record foreclosures.

We have a record 482 billionaires -- and a record 47
million people without any health insurance.

Since 2000, we have added 184 billionaires -- and 5
million more people living below the poverty line.

The official poverty threshold for one person was a
ridiculously low $10,294 in 2006. That won't get you two
pounds of caviar ($9,800) and 25 cigars ($730) on the
Forbes Cost of Living Extremely Well Index.

The $20,614 family-of-four poverty threshold is
lower than the cost of three months of home flower
arrangements ($24,525).

Wealth is being redistributed from poorer to richer.

Between 1983 and 2004, the average wealth of the
top 1 percent of households grew by 78 percent, reports
Edward Wolff, professor of economics at New York
University. The bottom 40 percent lost 59 percent.

In 2004, one out of six households had zero or negative
net worth. Nearly one out of three households had less
than $10,000 in net worth, including home equity.
That's before the mortgage crisis hit.

In 1982, when the Forbes 400 had just 13 billionaires,
the highest paid CEO made $108 million and the
average full-time worker made $34,199, adjusted for
inflation in 2006.

Last year, the highest paid hedge fund manager
hauled in $1.7 billion, the highest paid CEO made
$647 million, and the average worker made $34,861,
with vanishing health and pension coverage.

The Forbes 400 is even more of a rich men's club
than when it began. The number of women has dropped
from 75 in 1982 to 39 today.

The 400 richest Americans have a conservatively
estimated $1.54 trillion in combined wealth. That
amount is more than 11 percent of our $13.8 trillion
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) -- the total annual value
of goods and services produced by our nation of 303
million people. In 1982, Forbes 400 wealth measured
less than 3 percent of U.S. GDP.

And the rich, notes Fortune magazine, "give away a
smaller share of their income than the rest of us."
[C~B~N has found that to be true. The truly rich are the
absolute worst 'tippers' of anyone! ...Yes, I have had some
interesting jobs through-out my life! Each one has taught
me something!]

Thanks to mega-tax cuts, the rich can afford more
mega-yachts, accessorized with helicopters and
mini-submarines. Meanwhile, the infrastructure of
bridges, levees, mass transit, parks and other public
assets inherited from earlier generations of taxpayers
crumbles from neglect, and the holes in the safety net
are growing.

The top 1 percent of households -- average income
$1.5 million -- will save a collective $79.5 billion on
their 2008 taxes, reports Citizens for Tax Justice.

That's more than the combined budgets of the
Transportation Department, Small Business
Administration, Environmental Protection Agency
and Consumer Product Safety Commission.

Tax cuts will save the top 1 percent a projected $715
billion between 2001 and 2010. And cost us $715 billion
in mounting national debt plus interest.

The children and grandchildren of today's underpaid
workers will pay for the partying of today's plutocrats
and their retinue of lobbyists.

It's time for Congress to roll back tax cuts for the wealthy
and close the loophole letting billionaire hedge fund
speculators pay taxes at a lower rate than their
secretaries.

[I think we need to forget raising the minimum wage.
I think we need to get a law on the books that
guarantees American workers the
RIGHT to a LIVING WAGE. Therefore
insuring a cost of living increase each
year.]

Inequality has roared back to 1920s levels.

It was bad for our nation then.

It's bad for our nation now.

Holly Sklar is co-author of "Raise the Floor: Wages and
Policies That Work for All of Us" and "A Just Minimum
Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future."
She can be reached at hsklar@aol.com.
Copyright (c) 2007 Holly Sklar

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Raising the Minimum Wage

Congress values own paychecks more than workers



By Holly Sklar
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services
6/20/06
Copyright © 2006 Holly Sklar
[Blogged with permission.]

Members of Congress like to talk about values. They sure don't mean the Golden Rule: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."

While more and more hardworking Americans struggle to make ends meet, Congress showed what it really values -- the rising value of congressional pay.

The House refused to block the $3,300 "cost of living adjustment" that will raise congressional pay on Jan. 1 to $168,500 -- not counting great health benefits, pensions and perks.

Congressional pay raises between 1997 and 2007 will add up to $34,900. That's more than average workers make in a year.

It would take more than three workers to make $34,900 at the minimum wage stuck at $5.15 an hour -- just $10,712 a year -- since Sept. 1, 1997.

Full-time workers at minimum wage make less than $900 a month to pay rent, food, healthcare, gas and everything else. No wonder the U.S. Conference of Mayors Hunger and Homelessness Survey found that 40 percent of adults requesting emergency food assistance were employed, as were 15 percent of the homeless.

Childcare workers and security guards struggle to care for their own children. EMTs and health care aides can't afford to take sick days.

Yet Congress has given itself raise after raise, while giving none to minimum wage workers.

As Adam Smith himself wrote in "The Wealth of Nations,"
"It is but equity … that those who feed, clothe, and lodge the whole body of the people, should have such a share of the produce of their own labor as to be themselves tolerably well fed, clothed, and lodged."

Today's minimum wage workers have less buying power than minimum wage workers did back in 1950 when Harry Truman was president. The 1950 minimum wage is $6.30 in 2006 dollars, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics Inflation Calculator.

It would take $9.31 today to match the value of the minimum wage of 1968. It takes nearly two minimum wage workers to make what one worker made four decades ago.

The minimum wage has become a poverty wage instead of an anti-poverty wage. This has ripple effects far beyond minimum wage workers and their families.

The minimum wage sets the wage floor. When the minimum wage sinks, it drags down wages for workers up the pay scale as well. Between 1968 and 2005, worker productivity rose 111 percent, but the average hourly wage fell 5 percent, adjusting for inflation, and the minimum wage fell 43 percent.

The inflation-adjusted earnings of college-educated workers have fallen since 2000. Poverty rates are higher now than in the 1970s and we have an increasingly low-wage workforce instead of a growing middle class.

Contrary to myth, raising the minimum wage helps business and boosts the economy. We had high economic growth, low inflation, low unemployment and declining poverty rates after the last minimum wage hikes in 1996 and 1997.

States that have raised their minimum wages above the increasingly inadequate $5.15 federal level have had better employment trends than the other states, including for retail businesses and small businesses.

Higher wages increase consumer purchasing power, reduce costly employee turnover, and improve productivity and the quality of products and services.

For example, In-N-Out Burger, home of the nation's first drive-through hamburger stand, ranks first nationwide among fast food chains in overall excellence, food flavor, quality and customer service. Their entry-level wage of $9 is nearly $4 above the federal minimum wage.

Small business owner Malcolm Davis wrote in a letter to the editor, "My lowest-paid employee makes $8 per hour. … If I can find a way to be fair with my employees in rural Eastern North Carolina, why can't our government?"

A recent survey by the National Consumers League and Fleishman-Hillard Communications found that 76 percent of American consumers believe "how well a company treats/pays employees influences what they buy." Consumers said "commitment to employees" is the strongest proof of corporate responsibility and it is important for companies to ensure that workers "are paid a living wage."

A job should keep you out of poverty, not keep you in it.

It's time for Congress to stop their luxury raises, and raise the minimum wage to a living wage.


Holly Sklar is co-author of "A Just Minimum Wage: Good for Workers, Business and Our Future" (Let Justice Roll) and "Raise the Floor: Wages and Policies That Work for All Of Us."


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