"We have yet to understand, that if I’m starving—you are in danger. People think that my danger makes them safe—they're in trouble."
—James Baldwin
How many people realize that Americans are suffering worse wealth and income inequality today in 2026 than they did before The Great Depression a century ago? This Labor Day, while politicians and legacy media marvel over how great the Stock Market is doing, I want to provide a clearer lens on the actual state of the economy, what working people are suffering through every day, and how to ensure we better protect economic justice in America. So, here are nine facts on the state of our economy that legacy media will likely ignore. Let’s Address This.
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Fact 1: Americans are suffering worse economic inequality today than we did prior to The Great Depression. That inequality in major part enabled an economic collapse, one Americans would not emerge from for over a decade. And if we want to prevent a similar 21st century collapse, we must change course quickly. Notice the below inequality chart, the relatively flat trend from 1940-1980, and then the spike since. This is not by accident. We’ll come back to that in a moment.
Fact 2: According to the GINI Index, which measures economic inequality, the United States ranks last among developed nation on Earth. In fact, overall we’re even ranked worse than Russia or China on economic inequality. What does it say about our economic policies if nations run by autocrats and dictators achieve better economic justice than what our politicians enact?
Fact 3: The so-called "right to work" laws are not just anti-worker, they’re pro racist. “Right to work” laws were designed to uphold white supremacy by protecting employers who refused to hire Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) workers. These laws were crafted to weaken unions, dismantle collective bargaining, and strip workers of their power. As Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wisely warned us:
We must guard against being fooled by false slogans, such as 'right to work.' It is a law to rob us of our civil rights and job rights. Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining by which unions have improved wages and working conditions of everyone... Wherever these laws have been passed, wages are lower, job opportunities are fewer, and there are no civil rights. We do not intend to let them do this to us. We demand this fraud be stopped. Our weapon is our vote.
This is why I refuse to sanitize what “right to work” really is. It was built to protect white supremacy, not to protect workers, and calling it anything less only lets it keep doing exactly what it was designed to do.
Fact 4: If the minimum wage had kept pace with inflation and corporate productivity, it would be at least $27 per hour today. Instead, millions of workers are struggling to make ends meet on wages that have stagnated for decades. An analysis by Dean Baker of the Center for Economic Policy and Research placed the minimum wage at $23/hour back in 2021. Given inflation and continued overall productivity growth, it should be at least $28/hour now in 2026.
Fact 5: The Reagonomics myth of "trickle-down" economics has been nothing more than a scam that has, since 1980, redistributed an astonishing $79 trillion from the bottom 90% of Americans to the top 1%. Now recall the graph in Fact 1 above, and the spike in inequality since 1980. This shift in economic inequality is not an accident—it's when the Reagonomics scam began. This trickle down scam creates an economic system that favors the wealthy at the expense of everyone else. It is devastating.
So how do we fix this?
Fact 6: Well, we already have a proven way to fix this. From 1940 to 1980, the wealthiest Americans paid marginal tax rates of 70-94%. None went broke, none left the country, and all remained exceedingly wealthy. During this time, manufacturing boomed, and we witnessed the strongest middle-class growth in U.S. history. It is long past time to return to a system that works for everyone, not just the ultra-rich.
Fact 7: Wage theft is the largest form of theft in the United States Today. Experts have long calculated that corporations continue to steal an estimated $50 billion from workers annually through wage theft and other exploitative practices. That’s more than all other forms of theft in America—combined. As Economic Policy Institute Vice President Ross Eisenbrey reports:
Wage theft affects far more people than more well-known crimes such as bank robberies, convenience store robberies, street and highway robberies, and gas station robberies combined, and can be absolutely devastating for workers living from paycheck to paycheck. For low-wage workers, the wages lost from wage theft can total nearly 10 percent of their annual earnings.
Fact 8: The collapse of unions has enabled the rise of oligarchs. We need more labor unions because unions strengthen economic justice. Unions contribute to 11% or more in increased annual wages, better benefits and paid time off, help close the gender pay gap, and help close the racial pay gap. And ultimately, Unions protect workers against billion dollar corporations. And not just low income workers.
Consider this: The wealthiest actors and athletes are unionized to ensure that team owners and billionaire financiers cannot exploit them. So why should non-unionized middle-class workers be left vulnerable to the whims of billionaire business owners?
Fact 9: Billionaires don’t create jobs, they exploit workers by driving out small businesses, driving down wages, and driving up their own corporate profits. Indeed, 99.9% of businesses are small businesses with fewer than 250 employees. Does anyone seriously not see the problem with this report by OxFam that billionaires “gained” what workers lost during the pandemic?
Let us not forget that America is not $40 trillion in debt because the poor rely too much on welfare and pay too little in taxes. The real reason is that billionaires pay too little in taxes and rely too much on corporate welfare. Billionaire philanthropy, often touted as a noble endeavor, is little more than PR designed to distract from their tax avoidance. The fact is, 90% of today's billionaires were born before Jim Crow laws were abolished, before immigration was open to non-whites, and before women were allowed financial credit. The idea that they "earned it fair and square" is one of the greatest shams of our time. Stop defending billionaires, start taxing them out of existence, and start fighting for economic justice in America.
Conclusion
Our current economic model is not sustainable. It is unsustainable that 78% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. It is unsustainable that 1 in 6 Americans is food insecure. It is unsustainable that 114,000 Americans die annually because we don’t guarantee healthcare as a human right. It is unsustainable that while a universal healthcare model would save Americans $1T annually per a recent Yale study, corporations lobby corrupt politicians to prevent healthcare as a human right. It is unsustainable that Americans have the lowest life expectancy, highest maternal mortality, and highest infant mortality of any developed nation on Earth. And it is unsustainable that as billionaires and the ultra wealthy get wealthier, working people continue to suffer and die sooner. We can fix this, but it requires us to stand united as working people.
This means ensuring we raise the living wage, crack down on union busters, pass the PRO Act, raise corporate taxes, decrease taxes on working people, and demand paid time off and universal healthcare as a human right. This Labor Day, as you enjoy your weekend, your pension, your overtime pay, and the many other benefits that unions have fought for, remember that the fight for economic justice is far from over. We must continue to stand strong, unionize, and demand fair taxation to ensure a future where everyone can thrive.
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While working as a change nurse in Illinois, I was getting groceries at the neighborhood store and chatting with the kid packing my groceries. I had been taking care of his Granny, it's a small town. He was commenting on the low pay for nursing in the area and I asked him if he was better paid and why. He showed me his Union button, URCofA! When I finally was forced to form a union where I worked, I called the Retail Clerks Union, because no one in Illinois was willing to help health care workers.
Well said, labor creates all wealth. Solidarity forever!