General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Over all - was life better 50 years go today - or was it worse? [View all]LittleBlue
(10,362 posts)for the 99%. 50 years ago, we had unions and one income was sufficient. Now, two incomes may not be sufficient. The debt culture has eroded all the wealth of the bottom 30% to zero. Debt crushes college graduates.
The economic power has shifted so dramatically to favor the 1% that we're approaching the poverty rates of the 1960s. That's 50 years ago, but recall that we've had massive productivity gains in the last 5 decades because of women entering the workforce, technology gains, etc. So those gains have gone to the upper economic classes because the lower economic classes lost all bargaining power with the decline of unions and increase in political bribery. If wealth was shared as fairly as it was 50 years ago, that poverty rate would fall like a rock because those wealth increases would benefit everyone.