"Slavery is gone, but wage theft is still alive in America"

John Burbank:

Slavery is gone, but how about wage theft? In 1978, average wages were $17.74 an hour. In 2009 they were $18.63. That’s an 89-cent increase in 31 years. Is this because workers are less productive? No, productivity has increased by 10 percent just since the start of this great recession. Has the country’s national income contracted? No, in the past three decades it has increased by more than two-thirds per person. So what happened to wages? In just 30 years, we have allowed income to stampede from the middle class to the very top, so now the top 1 percent grab one quarter of all income. Have they earned this money “with their own hands?” Or is this money “the fruits of someone else’s labor?” A big and growing chunk of this money is unearned income — dividends, capital gains and interest. That is not labor. That is taking away from labor. That is wage theft. MORE...

Howie P.S.: More facts that some will find inconvenient.