Daily Local News (West Chester, PA)
Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders are being fueled by our lousy paychecks
Want to know why Donald Trump is still lapping the GOP presidential field, and why Bernie Sanders is actually, truly breathing down Hillary Clinton’s neck?
It’s because the last time I got a raise, George W. Bush was president.
Now to be clear, I’m not exactly complaining. After all, I know where the door is. No one is holding me here at The Trentonian against my will. And I have enough outside work to keep me in Evan Williams and FanDuel contests for the time being. But facts are facts, and my wages have been stuck in neutral — very literally — for nearly a decade.
The only saving grace? I’m not alone. Hardly falling behind the rest of y’all, because so many of us, one way or another, have been stuck in a wage freeze. And it’s not just since Bush the Second. It’s been for as long as we’ve been working.
In fact, since 1979, the majority of American workers have seen their wages either stay the same or go down (inflation-adjusted), according to the Economic Policy Institute. And more recently, American wages in 2014 were 6.5 percent lower than they were in 2007 according to Census figures.
This wouldn’t be completely terrible if this was happening to everyone. But of course, it’s not. Since 1979, the top 1 percent of American earners have seen their salaries go up by 281 percent, adjusted for inflation, according to the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities.
Last number, I promise: In 1973, the top one percent of earners accounted for eight percent of income; by 2014, it rose to 18 percent, according to the Center for Economic Policy and Research.
Loooooooong story short: The rich have gotten richer, us schlubs have stayed the same or gotten worse.
And after nearly 40 years of this happening, We the People have had enough. Mostly because We the People aren’t our grandparents, who were brought up with the “work hard and you’ll get what you deserve” way of thinking. They did work hard, and they did get what they deserved. There were pensions and retirements, golden years that were actually golden.
But us? (And by “us,” I’m talking about pretty much everyone not in the 1 percent and under the age of 65.) We played by and continue to play by the same rules. Only problem? We haven’t gotten what we’ve worked for. We’re stuck in neutral. Our golden years look a lot more piss yellow.
And we’re aggravated enough that we’re willing to listen to a selfavowed socialist in Bernie Sanders and willing to listen to a billionaire blowhard in Donald Trump, willing to listen to them and to vote for them if they can somehow manage to turn the tide of decades spent spinning wheels.
The truth in America is this: Virtually every single working American today has worked in an era where wages have stagnated. It’s not some “silent majority” or “vocal minority” out there, asking for a change in the status quo. It’s almost everyone. It’s a “no-longer-silent supermajority.”
It’s why I could see myself voting for Sanders, and why my dad said he could see himself voting for Trump.
Neither one of us would be voting for these candidates because we like them better than the others; we’d be voting for them because, no matter what, they’d shake things up.
And while we can fight over abortion rights and gay marriage, marijuana legalization and the death penalty, all Americans, red or blue, just want some more green. So while I’m not saying one of these outside-the-establishment-box types is going to win in 2016, I do think the time is ripe. Stranger things …