Daily Kos - Institute for Policy Studies demonstrates how inequality follows us into right into our golden years, or as the subtitle states: “
As Working Families Face Rising Retirement Insecurity, CEOs Enjoy Platinum Pensions.”
Co-authors Sarah Anderson and Scott Klinger point to some startling
statistics.
Just 100 CEOs have company retirement funds worth $4.7
billion — a sum equal to the entire retirement savings of the 41 percent
of U.S. families with the smallest nest eggs.
This $4.7 billion total is also equal to the entire retirement savings of the bottom:
- 59 percent of African-American families
- 75 percent of Latino families
- 55 percent of female-headed households
- 44 percent of white working class households
On average, the top 100 CEO nest eggs are large enough to
generate for each of these executives a $253,088 monthly retirement
check for the rest of their lives.
- Among ordinary workers, those lucky enough to have 401(k) plans had
a median balance at the end of 2013 of $18,433, enough for a monthly
retirement check of just $101.
- Of workers 56-61 years old, 39 percent have no employer-sponsored
retirement plan whatsoever and will likely depend entirely on Social
Security, which pays an average benefit of $1,239 per month.
1 comment:
From Glen Ford's latest radio commentary:
http://blackagendareport.com/billionaires_control_planet%27s_worth
"The United States has by far the highest concentration of billionaires – 536, followed by China, with 251. Russia is way down in sixth place, with only 77 billionaires, behind Britain, Germany and India. But, of course, billionaires live anywhere they want to -- which really means they live nowhere at all. Home is where their money is, and every billionaire is a fully globalized citizen, with no loyalties except to his class.
The existence of billionaires should be seen as a measure of the sickness of the capitalist system, now in its last stages. Of the eight richest billionaires in the United States, six made their fortunes from the telecommunications industry, whose political influence now rivals that of Wall Street. Not only are the Silicon Valley fat cats obscenely wealthy, but they control the information systems that the rest of us depend on to understand what’s going on in our world. That makes people like Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg very dangerous. The good news is, young people around the world understand the nature of the threat to human freedom posed by these information system tycoons, who got rich through monopoly and market manipulation, just like the other capitalists. They too, must face expropriation, so that the saga of human equality can begin."
Post a Comment