Pain Index shows wealth gap is growing
While tech moguls see exploding gains, many others fall behind
SAN JOSE >> Since 2020, the top 10 Silicon Valley moguls have more than doubled their net worth to $571 billion while the average per capita income among Latino residents in the valley increased by 5.4% to $30,618, according to the second annual Silicon Valley Pain Index released Tuesday.
At the same time, the average income of Black residents declined by 1% to $40,381.
“We’ve created kings,” said Scott Myers-Lipton, the report’s lead author, “and then the regular average folks are just getting by and some are dying.”
Myers-Lipton, a professor of sociology at San Jose State University and an advisory board member for its Human Rights Institute, was inspired by an index created in New Orleans following the devastation from Hurricane Katrina. He released the first Pain Index last year to jolt policymakers and the public into action.
“If we don’t try something different, we’re going to continue to get these numbers,” Myers-Lipton said, “and now it’s been a year and has
gotten way worse.”
The new index lists 89 statistics to illustrate the economic and racial disparity in Santa Clara County, including a lack of diversity among senior management of the largest tech companies, low vaccination rates among people of color, disproportionate police stops of minorities, and the growing net worth of Silicon Valley CEOs.
Since last year, COVID-19 economic challenges and layoffs slammed the Bay Area and food insecurity quadrupled, with Second Harvest Food Bank of Silicon Valley now feeding 500,000 clients each month. That’s nearly a quarter of Santa Clara County’s population. Households at risk of eviction or of missing mortgage payments jumped from 12,000 people in 2018 to 197,050. Nearly half of Black households face a high risk of eviction.
At the same time, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the co-founders of Google, and Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg collectively increased their wealth by $135 billion. They are among the top 10 Silicon Valley magnates who have seen their collective networth more than double in the past year.
“We are creating a system of socialized mass profits for the wealthy and corporations while we have democratized pain for the masses,” Assembly member Ash Kalra, D-San Jose, said.
Myers-Lipton noted that San Jose has a goal of building 10,000 affordable housing units by 2022, but only 427 units have been completed.
“We have to change things,” Kalra said. “If we keep doing things the way we’ve been doing them, we are going to get the same substandard result.”
This year, following the murder of George Floyd, Myers-Lipton sought out statistics on policing and race. Latino adults are 2.2 times more likely to receive a nontraffic stop infraction for things like loitering, smoking in a park, an open bottle or shopping cart possession than White adults, according to the index.
Jahmal Williams, SJSU Director of Advocacy for Racial Justice, said at a news conference for the report’s release that the index “highlights what we face on a daily basis. It highlights pain.”
Myers-Lipton hopes that other municipalities and counties will start their own annual pain indexes to make clear to the public what the problem is.
“If all people are created equal and then some are dying at much higher rates or not having access to vaccines or education, what can we change in the system to make it so we live up to that ideal that all people are created equal?” MyersLipton said.