An email from Senator Bernie Sanders: In America today, the top 1 percent owns 38 percent of our country’s financial wealth. The bottom 60 percent owns 2.3 percent. The increasing wealth inequality in the United States has become the great moral issue of our time. In America today, one family, the Walton family of Wal-Mart, owns more wealth than the bottom 40 percent, and the top 400 individuals have more wealth than the bottom half of our country -- over 150 million people. In terms of income, the top 1 percent earns more than the bottom 50 percent, while the wealthiest 16,000 Americans, who make more than $10 million a year (the top 0.01 percent), saw their income increase by nearly a third between 2011 and 2012. According to a recent study, from 2009 to 2012, 95 percent of all new income went to the top 1 percent. Meanwhile, since 1999, median family income declined by more than $5,000 after adjusting for inflation. Today, a record-breaking 46.5 million people live in poverty in the United States. At 21.8 percent, we have the highest rate of childhood poverty in the industrialized world. One out of four of our kids now lives in a family that receives food stamps. Poverty among seniors is growing. Over 9 percent of seniors lived in poverty in 2012, higher than in 2009. More American seniors were living in poverty last year than in 1972. In recent years, while median family income has declined and poverty has increased, the number of millionaires and billionaires has grown at an extraordinary rate. In 1996, there were 121 billionaires in America. Today, there are 442. Click her to let him know you agree: https://services.myngp/ngponlineservices/petition.aspx?X=Ja5OPsDYzMY=
Posted on: Mon, 18 Nov 2013 17:58:45 +0000
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