Last year, median CEO pay jumped to $10.5 million dollars – an increase of about 13 percent. However, most workers didn't see their paychecks go up by a single dime. According to an analysis by USA Today, corporate executives scored huge pay bumps thanks to big gains in the stock market. But, earnings for average workers stayed pretty much stagnant – only increasing 1.4 percent in all of 2012. According to the myth of Reaganomics, when those at the top make tons of money, some of that wealth should trickle down to the rest of us. But, for more than three decades, we've seen how that could not be farther from the truth.

Last year, degenerate gamblers on Wall Street made 20 billionaires $81 billion dollars richer, but that did nothing to boost our real economy, or provide more financial security for the average American. Our economy is so rigged that the very banksters who crashed our economy – and the CEOs who pay workers poverty wages – continue to be rewarded, while hard-working Americans can't even keep up with the cost of living. If we don't change this system, the billionaires will keep raking in hoards of cash, and we can kiss the American Dream goodbye forever.

As it stands, the middle class is shrinking day by day, and the super-rich control the very lawmakers who should be working to protect us. We need to get money out of politics. We need to ensure that workers share in our nation's prosperity. We need to stop rewarding the very folks who've rigged the system. That's why we need progressive policies that will strengthen the middle class, stand up to the banksters, and rebuild the American Dream.