Inexplicably buried at the bottom of page A-3 of the News-Journal’s dead tree edition is one of the most important stories of the year. This Jonathan Starkey story tells us the following:
Delaware’s wealthiest residents hoarded all of the income gains as the state recovered from the recession, according to a study from the Economic Policy Institute that provided yet more evidence of an imbalanced economic recovery.
From 2009 to 2012, the top 1 percent of Delaware earners saw income growth of 15 percent.
The bottom 99 percent? Their incomes fell 1.6 percent. The study was based on Internal Revenue Service data of adjusted gross income.
Got that? Yet Jack Markell opposes a decent living wage and opposes restoring progressivity to the tax code. The policies he put into effect during the so-called ‘recovery’ led to more, not less, inequity in income growth. Actually, you can’t call it income growth for the 99% who saw their income shrink by 1.6%. This is obscene.
You can read the response of Markell’s spokesman in the article. It’s not worth even trying to defend, IMHO. However, one of the survey’s co-authors explained it thusly:
(Mark) Price blamed the unequal economy – in Delaware and across the country – on the reduction of well-paid manufacturing jobs, falling union representation and a minimum wage that has not kept pace with rising costs, among other factors.
“Economies are growing,” Price said. “They’re generating lots of wealth and lots of income growth. It’s just not flowing equally.”
I cannot think of a more powerful platform for a progressive candidate to challenge this status quo.
It is long past time to raise the minimum wage in a meaningful way and to make those who have profited inequitably pay their fair share. That’s my litmus test for this General Assembly and for anyone who would deign to run for Governor in 2016.
This hoarding of the wealth, aided and abetted by our so-called elected officials, has got to stop. The 1% can’t control everything, can they?