the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Apr 13, 2015
In 2012, the top 400 American wage earners had an average income of more than 335 million dollars, according to a recent IRS report. Their average income was around 111 million dollars in 2011. So, they tripled their income within a year.
As icing on this cake, the filthy rich had a very small tax burden. Among the top 400, 32 paid between 0 and 10 percent in income tax, and the remaining paid less than 16.7 percent.
Meanwhile, the vast majority of the population had meager earnings, averaging, for the bottom 90 percent, about $32,000 for the year. For this majority, income rose by $159 from the previous year.
That is, while the rich increased their income, ours stagnated or decreased. This is not because of an accident nor because the rich working millions of times harder than we do. This is a result of a scheme, called capitalism, acting like a vacuum cleaner, emptying our pockets and filling theirs.