Economic recovery benefits in WA State are very unevenly distributed

[eridani]

http://www.eoionline.org/blog/can-we-all-benefit-from-the-economy/

Wages for the top fifth of workers have grown, but everyone in the middle or below has actually lost ground. The bottom 10 percent of workers, compared to the bottom 10 percent 35 years ago, actually make 25 cents less per hour. The worker in the middle makes about $18 an hour, a 15 cent per hour decline. Meanwhile, worker productivity has almost doubled. So where did this money go? Corporate profits and CEO salaries, for starters.

These inequalities did not happen by accident or because of some immutable laws of economics. Since the 1980s, national policy changes have undermined the middle class. Congress cut taxes for the wealthy and corporations, resulting in less public money to invest in education, college, Head Start, basic research and public infrastructure. Corporations strategize how to grab tax credit windfalls and government contracts simultaneously (think Boeing) and face less oversight (think Boeing and self-certification of a certain battery on the 787) and move around the globe searching to exploit the cheapest labor and avoid any consequences for environmental destruction.

Boeing’s demand that the Machinists give up their pensions and the state hand out further tax breaks was successful because the middle class across our country is so beaten down. If we want to realize a better and shared quality of life, we must reverse the growing inequality of income, opportunity, health and wellbeing. Instead of just being on your own, facing the unpredictabilities of health, work, education and life, we could all be part of a community of responsibility. Sort of like Social Security, through which everyone pays in, everyone gets benefits from, and everyone has skin in the game. With a platform of shared economic security, our private economy will thrive, with more customers for businesses, which means more profits AND more hiring, and that means more competition that increases bargaining power of workers.