While the corporate media spends an inordinate amount of time on gossip and celebrity coverage, many of the most important issues facing our country go virtually unreported. One of those issues is the growing gap between the rich and the poor and the reality that the United States has, by far, the most unfair distribution of wealth and income of any major country on earth.
In the United States today the wealthiest 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom 95 percent. The nation's 13,000 wealthiest families, who constitute one one-hundredth of one percent of the population, receive almost as much income as the bottom 20 million families. Recent data from the Congressional Research Office shows that the gap between the rich and the poor in terms of income more than doubled from 1979 to 2000.
When we talk about greed in America there is probably no greater example than that of the 5 members of the Walton family who own WalMart. As writer Holly Sklar points out, “While the WalMart heirs are among America's richest, WalMart workers are among America's poorest.” Collectively, Sam Walton's widow and four children have a combined wealth of $102.5 billion. Meanwhile, the workers at WalMart average just over $8 an hour, and the benefits there are minimal.
In our country and in Congress there should be a sense of outrage that an incredibly wealthy family such as the Walton's, which saw its wealth rise by $8.5 billion in the last year alone, refuses to pay a living wage to their employees.
Holly Sklar's perceptive piece is attached.
