| THIS WEEK |
Across the pond, UK workers last week enjoyed four days off to celebrate the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee, an extravaganza that marked 70 years of Elizabeth II’s reign. But after years of pandemic and deepening wealth inequality, a good chunk of the British public found this year’s celebrations — and their hefty pricetag — a bit too ironic to stomach.
British commentator Marina Purkiss captured that irony neatly in a retort to celebrity journalist Piers Morgan: “Government ministers are telling people they need to tighten their belts, to choose between heating and eating, and you’re saying it’s not at all tone deaf to force cash-strapped local governments to spend a fortune on these frivolities?”
A valid question to ask at a time when British child poverty now ranks among the highest in Western Europe while CEO pay levels in the UK have returned to their much more than ample pre-pandemic levels.
In the United States, of course, we have our own inequality issues to work through, with CEO pay high up on our list, and no one has been working longer to expose our CEO pay outrages than Inequality.org’s Sarah Anderson. She’s been the lead on the Institute for Policy Studies Executive Excess annual report that's been published ever since Bill Clinton sat in the White House. Sarah will be briefing the media tomorrow on the latest Executive Excess. The focus: CEO-worker pay gaps at the U.S. firms that report the lowest worker wages. We’ll have lots more on that next week!
Chuck Collins and Rebekah Entralgo,
for the Institute for Policy Studies Inequality.org team
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| INEQUALITY BY THE NUMBERS |
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| FACES ON THE FRONTLINES |
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| Fighting the Baby Formula Shortage’s Root Causes |
You may have been noticing headlines lately about a national baby formula shortage — sparked by a safety failure in an Abbott Industries plant — and the monopoly that forces families with babies to rely on the output of only four firms. The House has voted to allocate $28 million to bolster formula production capacity, but House and Senate Republicans alike have opposed the measure, preventing the life-saving bill’s passage.
Working mother TiffanyAnn Goodson takes this political failure personally. Her eight-month-old daughter, Jayde, requires a specialized formula. But the national shortage has left Goodson struggling to find even a short-term supply of the vital product. A member of Mocha Moms, the nation’s premier voice for mothers of color, Goodson sees the current crisis as “part of a broader, systemic problem of our policymakers underinvesting in families.” Read her take here on Inequality.org. |
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| WORDS OF WISDOM |
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PETULANT PLUTOCRAT
OF THE WEEK |
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| For ‘Democracy,’ This Billionaire Will Pay Any Price |
| In Illinois, every vote counts. Unfortunately, every dollar counts too, and hedge-fund billionaire Ken Griffin has lots more of them than anybody else in the state. Griffin has so far dropped $50 million on the candidacy of GOP gubernatorial hopeful Richard Irvin, who needs to win the GOP primary later this month to get a crack at J.B. Pritzker, the billionaire incumbent Democrat. A new Pritzker campaign ad is charging that Irvin, a former mayor, owes his lavish aid from Griffin to the thumbs-up he gave to a project dear to Griffin’s wheeling and dealing. Griffin’s response? How “disappointing,” he retorted last week, “that a man born with a silver spoon has accomplished so little, especially as governor.” Pritzker, the Chicago Tribune notes, has indeed failed to accomplish much on the tax front. One reason: Griffin shelled out $53.75 million two years ago to beat back Pritzker’s push to replace the state’s rich people-friendly flat-rate income tax with a system that taxes higher incomes at higher rates. |
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| BOLD SOLUTIONS |
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| Fund the Special IRS Wealth Investigative Unit |
| The Covid pandemic has so far enriched the nation’s millionaires and billionaires to the tune of $1.7 trillion. And as the rich get richer, they need somewhere to park their billions beyond the traditional financial markets. That’s why the uber-wealthy are now using a wide variety of physical assets — think real estate, yachts, and art — as vessels for wealth storage. They’re also creating complex trusts to house their wealth, recruiting skilled attorneys to extort loopholes and manipulate laws to protect their wealth from taxation. Enter the Wealth Squad! Inequality.org researcher Kalena Thomahve has more on how funding tax enforcement measures like the Global High Wealth Industry Group can trim the wealth gap and hold our powerful elites accountable. |
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| GREED AT A GLANCE |
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| TOO MUCH |
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| The UK and USA, Joined at the Hip — by Inequality |
| The UK and the USA have each spent the last half-century feverishly enriching the few and failing the many. What engendered this outcome? Simply put: Political decisions have driven the UK and the USA down the road to ever-greater economic inequity, and, to a remarkable extent, as Stewart Lansley shows in his just-published The Richer, the Poorer, the USA and the UK have marched down this road in an eerie political sync. Inequality.org’s Sam Pizzigati has more. |
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| MUST READS |
What's on Inequality.org
Manuel Pérez-Rocha, Latin American Leaders Gathering in Los Angeles Should Stand Up for People, Not Corporate Profits. A Mexican fair trade activist reflects on the past two decades of battles against neoliberalism and for a more just and equitable alternative in the Americas.
Elsewhere on the Web
Kate Pickett, The paradox of inequality, Social Europe. How to turn the vicious circle of relative status and social mistrust into a virtuous one.
Ariel Gold, America Needs a Jubilee, Common Dreams. A modern-day Jubilee could end corporate welfare, impose strong taxation on the rich, and redistribute wealth and resources to the bottom.
Stewart Lansley, Reversing inequality: from capital to citizens, Social Europe. An effective pro-equality strategy demands a progressive system of asset redistribution, giving all citizens direct access to the gains wealth ownership brings.
Jordan Carroll, To Understand Elon Musk, You Have to Understand This ’60s Sci-Fi Novel, Jacobin. In The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, one of Musk’s favorite books, a lunar colony cuts off resources to its starving Earth dependents.
Paul Rogers, Our global economic system is broken. Are we headed for a mass revolt? Open Democracy. How long can billionaires continue to amass wealth while the world's poorest struggle to buy food?
Marjorie Kelly and Karen Kahn, Is private equity joining — or co-opting — the employee ownership movement? Fast Company. The new employee ownership nonprofit that America’s private equity giants have announced to great fanfare ignores the democratic decision-making, employee voice and shared prosperity central to worker engagement.
John Anderer, Class divide: Wealthy people feel ‘entitled’ to buy expensive, unsustainable goods, Study Finds. Wealthy people turn out to be more likely to buy unsustainable goods if the items came with a lofty price tag. |
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| A FINAL FIGURE |
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| BE THE 1% (NO, NOT THAT 1%) |
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Our goal for 2022: that 1% of our Inequality.org subscribers become monthly sustainers and help grow our newsletter and research efforts. Be the 1%, for as little as $3 a month! |
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