It's only the second week of the new year, but many corporate CEOs have already made more money than most of us will make for the rest of the year.
Despite those exorbitant salaries, many of those same CEOs are fighting hard to keep their taxes low and keep our fellow Americans from making a living wage.
According to the Washington Post, by 8:30am on January 1st, 2013, the CEO of Walmart had already made as much as his typical employee did in a year. And, considering that CEO pay has been rising, it's likely that it took even less time to reach that amount in the 2016 new year.
With all that cash floating around, it's hard to believe that most Americans have seen their incomes flat-line over the last few years, and that our middle class continues to fall behind. But, when all the income goes to one group – and they refuse to pay their fair share of taxes – it leads to the economic inequality that's destroying our middle class.
According to a recent report from the Pew Research Center, the American middle class has shrunk by more than 10 percent since 1971, and the gap between the rich and the poor continues to get wider.
In 1965, CEOs made an average of 20 times the salary of their average worker, but today, many top executives bring home more than 300 times as much as they pay their typical employee.
That's why our middle class keeps shrinking, and why the average American feels like it's impossible to get ahead. And, that's exactly why we have to change our broken system.
We need to continue the fight for a living wage and force those at the top to pay their fair share of taxes. We need to strengthen our unions and reign in the salaries and bonuses of corporation executives who commit crimes or send jobs overseas. We need to invest in putting Americans back to work and reboot the American Dream.
And, all of that starts when we stand together and elect those who will stand with us. This election year, let's prove that when we fight – we win. Just like democracy, equality is a participatory sport. Tag you're it!
-Thom
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