This week Americans will vote to decide who will be their next president. The result will not only change the course of history in the US – it will have major consequences around the world.
The 2020 race to the White House has been the most divisive for a generation. The campaign has been derailed by the COVID-19 pandemic, which so far has taken the lives of nearly a quarter of a million Americans – more than any other country in the world.
But the fractures running through US society long predate the pandemic. Here are six charts that reveal America’s deep social and economic divides.
1. How the 1% won America’s class war
In 1980, the top 1% of earners took home 10% of US national income, and the bottom 50% of earners took home 20%. By 2016 however, these positions had reversed: the income share of the top 1% had increased to 20%, and the income share of the bottom 50% had decreased to 13%.
In other words: over the past four decades the top 1% have hoovered up an ever-growing share of national income at the expense of ordinary Americans. Although ‘class war’ rhetoric has never been popular in Washington, the reality is that lawmakers have been waging a class war for decades – on behalf of the rich against everyone else.
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Laurie Macfarlane | Radio Free (2020-11-03T13:35:27+00:00) Six charts that reveal America’s deep divides. Retrieved from https://www.radiofree.org/2020/11/03/six-charts-that-reveal-americas-deep-divides/
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