Sadly, at this moment in time, I hate to admit that it is in a way naive to have expectations. However, four years ago I would have had a differing opinion. Prior to 2016, I honestly did not care about/pay attention to politics. I now realize it is a privilege to have thought such a thing. I believe the reason for such a flip in opinions over the past few years comes from not realizing how much better off we were before this administration. As soon as I came to my senses and recognized how much of a political person I am, I was handed Trump. As a 16 year old I felt there was nothing I could do about it, so I just hoped that his term would be quick and painless. Unfortunately that was not the case. However, although I do think having hope and expectations may be a little naive at this point in time, I do still acknowledge the hard work of previous generations that it took for us to get here today. I am forever grateful to those who have fought against injustice and for equal rights,etc.
Although we have come a long way, there is still farther to go. I do believe that too many Americans are having to live in cruel and inhuman conditions as Mckibben points out. Since 1978, CEO compensation has gone up by 940% according to the Economic Policy Institute. Meanwhile, the current federal poverty level for a single person household is $12,760. Meaning that even if a person were to work a full-time minimum wage job ($7.25/hour) they would still not meet the requirements to be considered under the poverty level. How does that make sense? It is cruel and inhuman to expect people to be able to live effectively off such a small amount of money. After you take into consideration rent, groceries, bills, etc., it is impossible to keep your head above water.
To get a better understanding of how messed up our wage distribution is, I have included this video of Katie Porter breaking down the finances of an employee to a bank CEO in order to try and make him have a better understanding of this distribution as well.
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I love this video because it shows how easy it is for people with that much wealth to just lose touch of how regular working class people live. For a CEO with that much money, it would ideally be an obvious answer that maybe his employees should earn higher wages if their current wages don't cut it, but here we are. It's just become a measuring game now to see how high someone's wealth can be, when there is no way for a person to need, or even spend that much money, especially at the cost of people like the working mom exampled in the video.
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