In These Times: Millions of U.S Workers for Walmart, McDonald’s and Other Corporate Giants Rely on Food Stamps and Medicaid
A new report by the Government Accountability Office reveals how profitable corporations in the United States receive corporate welfare. Due to the low wages paid by corporations like Walmart, full-time workers become subsidized by the U.S. Government in lieu of the corporation paying a fair wage.
“The new GAO report echoes the conclusions of similar studies by the University of California, Berkeley Labor Center in 2013 and 2015, which found that U.S. taxpayers are subsidizing large corporations to the tune of $153 billion per year in the form of public assistance programs to support their low-wage employees.”
Economic Policy Institute: Wages for the top 1% skyrocketed 160% since 1979 while the share of wages for the bottom 90% shrunk
The Economic Policy Institute documents how once again the trend of wages for the bottom 90% being redistributed upwards continued in 2019.
“Over the longer term, since 1979, there was far faster wage growth at the top (highest 1.0%) and tippy top (upper 0.1%), signaling a major redistribution upward from the bottom 90%. As Figure A shows, the top 1.0% of earners are now paid 160.3% more than they were in 1979. Even more impressive is that those in the top 0.1% had more than double that wage growth, up 345.2% since 1979. In contrast, wages for the bottom 90% grew only 26.0% in that time.”
Washington Center For Equitable Growth: The long-run implications of extending unemployment benefits in the United States for workers, firms, and the economy
A recent study by the Washington Center For Equitable Growth examines how a longer duration for unemployment benefits positively affects both workers and firms in the long run.
“Their findings also suggest that insufficient durations of unemployment benefits during moments of macroeconomic contraction exacerbate inequality in the U.S. labor market. This concern is magnified during today’s coronavirus recession because the sectors of the U.S. economy that have been hardest hit are the same ones where women, people of color, and low-educated workers are overrepresented.”
