There was a time when the United States had the richest and largest (percentage-wise) middle class in the world. That is no longer true. Now the middle classes of many European nations, and of our northern neighbor, are richer than the middle class in the United States.
Why? It started in 1980, when the Republicans initiated their odious "trickle-down" economic policy. That policy said that if we give more to the rich, it will trickle down to all Americans -- and everyone will benefit. It was a stupid idea, and it didn't work. All it did was fatten the bank accounts of the rich and the corporations. NOTHING trickled down.
The chart above shows some of the things we could do to fix this problem -- things that Canada already does. We could raise the minimum wage to a livable level, strengthen labor unions, raise taxes on the rich (and make corporations pay their taxes), impose a single-payer health care system that offers free medical care to all, and impose strong regulations on banks and other financial institutions.
There are other things that could be done, but these would be a good start toward insuring our economy is fair to all. They problem is that our Congress is controlled by Republicans -- and they oppose all of these measures. They must be voted out of power in November. It's the only way we can return this nation to a sane economic policy -- a policy that is fair to everyone.
Unions started out has a good powerful force and like all things using power they became corrupted and useless.
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