We have been raised on the “American Dream,” the land of opportunity, the place of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, with liberty and justice for all.
We revel in American exceptionalism, knowing that our country is better than others. And for some people, all these ideas of America have come true. The promise of prosperity that lured immigrants here from the time of the country’s founding was fulfilled for many of them.
Of course, the people brought here on slave ships, and the people who were here when the country was “discovered” didn’t prosper, but their exploitation certainly allowed others to do so.
I have been thinking about the promise of prosperity, a central tenet of the American dream. The idea was that if you worked hard, you could buy a home, start a business, and that your children would do better that you.
A college degree wasn’t necessary to get a job that paid enough to buy a house, and there might even be a pension. And, if you had a college degree, your student loan payments weren’t a barrier to having kids or buying a home.
Our economy used to be a ladder to opportunity because the growth in the economy was shared up and down the income range. We had shared prosperity — what was good for the boss would be good for the workers and would be good for communities.
Of course, this was not true for every worker. African-American and Latino workers struggled to tear down the barriers to prosperity that were erected to keep them out, including discrimination in hiring, education and housing. But, the combination of labor unions, a reasonable minimum wage, and basic health and safety laws meant that wages and productivity grew in tandem for most workers until the 1970s.
The Massachusetts Budget and Policy Center, in partnership with the Community Action Agencies of the commonwealth, issued a report this month called “Obstacles on the Road to Opportunity: Finding a Way Forward.” They note that incomes for people in Massachusetts at the lower end of the ladder and even for those in the middle have essentially been flat when inflation is factored in.
And they note that “the top 1 percent of households have seen their inflation-adjusted incomes more than triple. In inflation-adjusted dollars, the three-year average income for the top 1 percent in Massachusetts rose from about $430,000 from 1978-1980 to over $1.8 million in 2012-2014.”
Meanwhile, the president of Walmart makes $22,791,276 annually while the average Walmart worker makes $19,177 a year. He makes 1,188 times as much as the median worker in a Walmart store.
There is certainly nothing wrong with business owners making money. In our Valley, many owners of small and medium-sized businesses struggle to pay living wages and benefits to valued employees.
Their incomes haven’t tripled, and they still work hard to be contributing community members. Many of those business owners, their employees, and their families help support the United Way, take part in school and community fundraisers, and participate in local government.
But the deck is stacked against the poor, the small-business owner, the wage earners — the people chasing the “American Dream.”
Here is a data point from the Society for Human Resources Management. “In the United States, an average 3 percent pay increase (in 2018) is predicted by Korn Ferry, the same as for 2017. Adjusted for the expected 2 percent inflation rate in 2018, however, the real wage increase is 1 percent — down from last year’s 1.9 percent.”
And, there is a yearly publication put out by the Federal Reserve Bank called the “Report on the Economic Well-Being of U.S. Households.” There are some telling data points in the 2017 report:
Four in 10 adults, if faced with an unexpected expense of $400, would either not be able to cover it or would have to sell something or borrow money.
Over one-fifth of adults are not able to pay all their current month’s bills in full.
There is one more sign of the perilous time we are in. In 2014, a study done by sociologists from Duke and the University of Arizona found that more than 25 percent of the 1,500 respondents had no one who they could confide in.
The ladder to opportunity and prosperity has become a “slip-n-slide.” Wealth has become more concentrated in the pockets of a few, while families and communities struggle to meet their most basic needs.
We are increasingly isolated despite the rise of social media. Our democratic institutions are under attack and are being used to enrich the wealthiest Americans without any concern about the cost to the rest of us. Elections are for sale.
To quote Justice Louis Brandeis, “We must make our choice. We may have democracy, or we may have wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”
Clare Higgins, of Northampton, a former mayor of the city, is executive director of the nonprofit Community Action Pioneer Valley. She can be reached at opinion@gazettenet.com.