“The top one percent owns nearly $30 trillion of assets while the bottom half owns less than nothing.”
By Jake Johnson
Common Dreams (6/14/19)
Adding to the mountain of statistical evidence showing the severity of U.S. inequality, an analysis published Friday found that the top one percent of Americans gained $21 trillion in wealth since 1989 while the bottom 50 percent lost $900 billion.
Matt Bruenig, founder of the left-wing think tank People’s Policy Project, broke down the Federal Reserve’s newly released “Distributive Financial Accounts” data series and found that, overall, “the top one percent owns nearly $30 trillion of assets while the bottom half owns less than nothing, meaning they have more debts than they have assets.”
The growth of wealth inequality over the past 30 years, Bruenig found, is “eye-popping.”
“Between 1989 and 2018, the top one percent increased its total net worth by $21 trillion,” Bruenig wrote. “The bottom 50 percent actually saw its net worth decrease by $900 billion over the same period.”
“Enormous crisis,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) tweeted in response to Bruenig’s analysis.
“We have the worst inequality in this country since the 1920s,” wrote Jayapal, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “Three wealthiest people in America have as much wealth as the bottom 50 percent.”
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(Commoner Call cartoon by Mark L. Taylor, 2017. Open source and free for non-derivative use with link to www.thecommonercall.org )
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Ivanka Trump & Jared Kushner Grabbed As Much As $135m Last Year
By Associated Press (6/14/19)
Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner took in as much as $135m in income during their second year as aides to Donald Trump, generated from their vast real estate holdings, stocks and bonds and even a book deal, according to their financial disclosures released Friday.
Ivanka Trump’s stake in her family’s Washington DC hotel down the street from the Oval Office generated $3.95m in revenue in 2018, barely changed from a year earlier. The hotel, a favorite gathering spot for foreign diplomats and lobbyists, is at the center of two federal lawsuits claiming Trump is violating the constitution’s ban on foreign government payments to the president.
Another big Ivanka Trump holding, a trust that includes her personal business selling handbags, shoes and accessories, generated at least $1m in revenue in 2018, down from at least $5m the year before. Ivanka Trump announced in July of last year that she planned to close her fashion company to focus on her work as a White House adviser for her father.
The disclosure for her husband, Jared Kushner, shows that he took in hundreds of thousands of dollars from his holdings of New York City apartments and that he owns a stake in the real estate investment firm Cadre worth at least $25m.
The disclosures released by the White House and filed with the US Office of Government Ethics shows minimum revenue for the couple of $28m last year. …
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Bosses Pocket Massive Trump Tax Giveaway As Workers See Job Promises Vanish
AT&T, General Motors and Wells Fargo vowed to use tax cuts to create jobs. In fact, they did the opposite.
By Michael Sainato
The Guardin (6/15/19)
Stephen Smith worked at an AT&T call center in Meriden, Connecticut, for over 20 years before the giant telecoms company announced it was closing the city’s three call centers in February 2019.
“At 46 years old, I’m looking for a new job,” Smith said. “They basically told us we either need to move south or lose our job. It was out of the blue. We had no idea.”
Smith and about 90 of his colleagues were offered severance packages or the option to relocate to Georgia or Tennessee. But for most workers who have spouses with their own careers, elderly parents nearby in need of care, or children still in school, relocating on a whim isn’t an option.
These sudden mass layoffs have become increasingly common for workers at AT&T and many other big firms. But it was not meant to be that way.
AT&T’s CEO, Randall Stephenson, promised in November 2017 to invest $1bn in capital expenditure and create 7,000 new jobs at the company if Trump’s hugely controversial tax cut bill passed. Many opponents had slammed the cuts as a corporate giveaway that benefited the super-rich. But big firms lobbied for it, saying – as AT&T did – that it would fund job-creating expansions.
The bill was voted into law in December 2017, reducing the corporate tax rate from 35% to 21%. AT&T’s benefit was a tax windfall of $21bn and an additional estimated $3bn annually. But instead of creating jobs and increasing investment into the company, AT&T has eliminated 23,328 jobs since the tax cut bill was passed, according to a recent report by the Communications Workers of America. The CWA also said AT&T reduced their capital investments by $1.4bn. …
