Page 12 - Provoke Magazine Vol2

99%ers Vs 1%ers
How economic inequality is
for all of us, including the top one percent
In their 2011 video “99% v 1%: the data behind the Occupy movement,” The Guardian explains the shift in wealth in- equality that occurred during one of the greatest econom- ic crashes in recent history. In 2011, during what is known as the Occupy Wall Street movement, the lower-earning 99 percent took to the streets to boycott the fact that only “a tiny minority controls America’s wealth.” Around that time, the richest one percent, comprised only of millionaires and billionaires, owned a third of the US net worth. The Clinton and Bush eras had led to more wealth for the rich, but when the economy crashed in 2008 everyone lost. Sure it was bad news for all, but the poor lost six percent more on average than the rich did, creating an even greater economic gap. By 2011, one-seventh of Americans lived below the pover- ty line, while one-sixth didn’t even have health insurance.
The United States is currently in a state of severe economic inequality. You hear about it all the time: the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. The rich being the top one percent, and the poor being the bottom 99 percent. A 2018 Washington Post article states that “Over the past 40 or so years, the American economy has been funneling wealth and income... from the pockets of the bottom 99% to the coffers of the top 1%.” We haven’t experienced eco- nomic inequality this great since before World War II and economists believe the trend will continue with “the top one percent of Americans capturing a quarter or more of the na- tional income by 2030.” You may think that this is only a bad thing for the bottom 99 percent, or even just for those at the bottom of the bottom 99 percent, but it’s actually very unfor- tunate for everyone, including those at the very top.
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A record number of households even struggled to put food on the table. Things were not looking up, especially for the bottom 99 percent.
So how has it been since then? In a 2016 study for the Washington Center for Equitable Growth, Emmanuel Saenz states that The Great Recession of 2007-2009 was devastating to all, and everyone saw a decrease in income of more than eleven percent. It took until 2013 for the bottom 99 percent to gain more than one percent in income, but by 2015 they had gained nearly six percent. According to the Saenz, both the top one percent and bottom 99 percent saw significant growth in income between 2014 and 2015 as well. Sounds promising, right? Not exactly. In this time, both sides saw increases, but the wealthy saw an even greater increase than the rest.
BAD