THE NATION MAY BE UNRAVELING BUT
THAT DOESN'T EVEN PAUSE THE RICH
GETTING MUCH, MUCH, MUCH RICHER
UNDER BIDENOMICS.
The corporate assault on US workers’ living standards during the pandemic intensified in 2021. While inflation slashed living standards for most of the population, corporate profits surged to their highest levels in decades, rising 25 percent year over year to $2.81 trillion. The rise is even greater—37 percent—when taxes are factored in. This is the highest figure since records began in 1948.
AMERICA IS A NATION FOR THE RICH AND 'CHEAP' ILLEGAL LABOR THAT THE RICH DEMAND
25 Facts About The Explosive Growth Of Poverty In America That Will Blow Your Mind
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANm7FAKuCw0
The rest of the world sees America as the wealthiest nation on the entire planet. But when we take a closer look at the hardships our population is facing, we can rapidly realize that there's a tremendous amount of financial suffering in the United States, and that's getting dramatically worse with each passing year. Today, more money goes towards the pockets of the rich than ever before. Over the past few decades, we've been witnessing the greatest event of wealth transfer in the history of our nation without even realizing it. While billionaire CEOs like Mark Zuckenberg make over a million times more than the average American worker every year, many families out there, whose parents work themselves to the bone every single day, will still struggle to find what to eat and where to sleep with their children tonight.
Extreme poverty continues to grow all across the country. According to an analysis released by the University of Chicago, at least 336,000 households with children live on less than two dollars a day. That’s a group known as the ultra-poor. Amid skyrocketing housing and rent prices, at least 600,000 Americans remain in a group known as the “unhoused”. “Right now, we are still trending in the wrong direction,” explained Anthony Love, interim executive director at the United States Interagency Council on Homelessness. “When the public is told that one particular policy is going to end homelessness, what they’re expecting is that they’re going to see fewer homeless people around,” added Stephen Eide, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. What they haven’t considered yet is that housing has to come first, Eide stressed.
Meanwhile, the gap between the rich and the rest of the population is worsening. On average, the top 1% of earners make 20 times more than the bottom 90% every year. The wealth disparity grows the higher up the ladder we climb. Even the mid-level one-percenters can’t reach the gigantic amounts earned by the ultra-rich. These disparities, make us question whether the US is indeed a rich nation or a nation for the rich. The answer is up to interpretation, but you can have a clearer picture about this issue at the end of this video. Today, we gathered some staggering stats that expose that poverty in the United States is wildly out of control. Here are 25 Facts About The Explosive Growth Of Poverty In America That Will Blow Your Mind.
For more info, find us on: https://www.epiceconomist.com/
New York state budget—millions for the rich, lengthy jail time for the poor
An overall agreement on the New York state budget for fiscal year 2023, totaling $220 billion, was announced late Thursday. It must still be given final approval by the Legislature. The deal was reached between Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul and the state Legislature, both houses of which are controlled by the Democrats, nearly a week past an April 1 deadline. It contains a hodgepodge of provisions that do little to disguise the reactionary direction of the state’s ruling class in a period of mounting crisis.
The budget’s components, a number of which are not clearly budgetary, include a combination of the reinforcement of police/judicial repression of the working class, largesse for the capitalist elite, and underfunding of social programs, all in the context of rising inflation, a new wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, and the escalating US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine, which could lead to a nuclear holocaust.
Hochul, the former lieutenant governor who replaced Andrew Cuomo last year as governor after the latter was forced to resign from office based on a dubious #Me Too witch hunt, is now running for governor in her own right, and needs to prove her reliability to the ruling class in running the state, which is home to the world’s financial nerve center—Wall Street.
Portrayed in the bourgeois press as a struggle between so called “moderate” and “progressive” wings of the Democratic Party, the budgetary process constituted nothing more than an “intramural scrimmage,” in the cynical words employed by former president Barack Obama under slightly different circumstances.
A combination of higher than expected tax revenues and federal COVID-19 relief funding will provide an $8 billion increase over the 2022 budget. However, far from using the additional resources to meaningfully address the devastating consequences of the pandemic, not to mention the unprecedented levels of inequality that have continued to grow in recent years, the political establishment’s priorities include the strengthening of judicial powers aimed at suppressing the working class, along with boondoggle projects and tax cuts for the wealthy.
As part of the national push by the ruling class to build up the state’s repressive forces as class tensions increase, both the Republicans and the great majority of Democrats, including New York City’s new mayor, Eric Adams, have been working to whip up a right-wing frenzy over an increase in gun violence that occurred during the pandemic. This campaign seeks to frame the increase not as a tragic consequence of the social tensions generated by the social crisis and the ruling class’s criminal mismanagement of the disease, but rather as due to New York’s 2019 bail reform legislation. This included slightly less draconian bail requirements, thus permitting a somewhat greater number of defendants to remain free prior to trial.
Hochul wants to increase the number of offenses for which cash bail would be required. She also advocates that judges be permitted to assess the “dangerousness” of a defendant in deciding whether the posting of a bail bond should be required, a “reform” that has been heavily promoted by the Republicans. The effect would be to reduce the number of defendants who can be released on their own recognizance pending trial, which can last for many months, especially due to delays caused by the pandemic.
This would increase the number of primarily lower-income individuals who are sent to Rikers Island, the largest jail complex in the United States, where three men have already died this year, for such minor offenses as subway fare evasion. It would, in effect, further criminalize poverty and do nothing to address the already existing gross social inequality that has been sharply exacerbated by the pandemic. Hochul is pushing this as part of a tough-on-crime agenda in tandem with Adams.
The contention that the increase in gun violence, which is a real phenomenon, is due to the previous, quite modest bail reform is exposed as a fabrication by the simple fact that such increases have occurred in many places across the country, coincident, as in New York, with the pandemic, but without the concomitant bail reform. Instead, this issue, along with a number of other law-and-order actions, such as the clearing of homeless people from the subways in New York City, is being used to divert attention from the real criminals who are responsible for the devastation wrought by the profits-before-lives policy of the ruling class with regard to COVID-19, which continues to kill a dozen New Yorkers every week.
In another retrenchment aimed at weakening defendant’s rights, the requirement known as discovery, which mandates that the prosecution turn over all relevant evidence to lawyers representing the defendant within a specified period of time, has been loosened, effectively weakening the ability to mount a comprehensive defense.
Indicative of the devastation wrought by the pandemic, a recent report by the New York State Department of Health found that 4,965 drug overdose deaths occurred in the state in 2020 and there were more than 91,000 nationwide, a grim new record. This parallels a similar rise across the country, and these deaths are clearly, at least in large part, “deaths of despair.” However, unlike gun violence, which can easily be portrayed as a law-and-order issue, requiring more police and stricter judicial enforcement, these deaths more overtly illustrate societal dysfunction and are, therefore, less amenable to simplistic, right-wing “dog whistle” politics, and are not addressed in the budget.
Workers are being driven back to unsafe jobs by economic blackmail in the interest of business in order to maintain the flow of profits. At the same time, the availability of affordable, safe child care is far below the need, placing parents in an impossible contradiction. The miserably low pay for child care workers has created a crisis of staffing. Many child care facilities have closed. Nonetheless, the budget allocation to support the provision of such services is grossly inadequate.
The proposed plan would provide an 80 percent subsidy for the cost of child care to low-income families, those whose incomes do not exceed 300 percent of the ridiculously low federal poverty line, especially in urban areas like New York City. Under the new guideline, a family of four earning about $83,000 would qualify for free child care. Moreover, the $7 billion allocation, spread over three years, is based on the ludicrous assumption that only 15 percent of eligible families would actually participate. In addition, undocumented families, who compose a significant portion of the state’s population, including an estimated 5,000 children, and are among the most highly exploited section of the workforce, are not even eligible.
Another indication of the gross social and economic inequality that has been exacerbated by the pandemic, which has impacted a large portion of New York’s population and is belittled or ignored in the proposed budget, is housing and homelessness. There are 50,000 homeless individuals in New York City’s shelters, including more than 15,000 children. All told nearly 100,000 New Yorkers experience homelessness on any given day.
Mayor Adams’ solution is to mount a campaign to destroy homeless encampments and evict their occupants. The new budget does no better. Legal Aid Society Supervising Attorney Judith Goldiner said of the budget, “It’s pretty dreadful.” “The governor decided to-go drinks [take out from bars] and a stadium in Buffalo were more important than housing the homeless and marginalized New Yorkers.”
One factor in the growth of the homeless population is the high costs of home heating and electricity, which have increased sharply during the pandemic and are likely to go even higher due to the war in Ukraine. An estimated 330,000 New York residential customers, one in five, are behind on paying their utility bills by at least two months, with a total shortfall of $1.7 billion. Many more are nearing the brink. The American Association of Retired Persons (AARP) in New York, and the Public Utility Law Project estimate that a minimum of $500 million is needed to meet immediate needs, which will otherwise lead to increased indebtedness and possibly service shutoffs. The new budget includes only about $300 million for this purpose.
While growing numbers of New Yorkers are being driven toward poverty, public resources are being employed to further enrich the already wealthy. Emblematic of the “business-friendly” policy of the Hochul administration is the proposed massive state contribution to funding the construction and operation of a new stadium for the Buffalo Bills football team, whose home is the city of Buffalo, in western New York. This giveaway of public funds is being promoted by Hochul for what happens to be her home town.
The public contribution is reported to include $600 million from the state, another $250 million from Erie County, plus $400 million from Seneca Nation of Indians gaming proceeds. The Buffalo Bills franchise is owned by billionaire Florida residents Terry and Kim Pegula, who will contribute a comparatively miserly $550 million, less than a third of the total, while reaping untold financial benefits from the construction of the new stadium, predominantly at taxpayers’ expense. Independent assessments project that cost overruns and operating expenses will likely push the taxpayer “contribution” even higher. The total public cost has been described as the “largest NFL stadium subsidy in history.”
This deal exemplifies the corrupt practices for which New York state government is notorious. In recent years, several high government officials have been convicted of egregious self-dealing. In an effort to project a new, “clean” image, shortly after taking office Hochul announced a non-binding conflicts-of-interest policy under which she promised to recuse herself from state business in which her husband was involved.
In fact, Hochul’s husband is an executive at Delaware North, the company which has held the concessions contract for the current stadium during the past 30 years, placing him in a strong position to benefit from the construction of the new stadium. Nevertheless, in what would seem an egregious violation of her own policy, the governor did not recuse herself but was prominently involved in the negotiation and promotion of the deal for the new stadium.
Even aside from this glaring personal conflict of interest, spending such a large sum of public money on a boondoggle project that provides support to the millionaire owners of a professional sports team is an insult to the millions of New Yorkers whose living standards are being severely impacted by the pandemic and now surging inflation.
The new budget confirms once more that the Democratic Party is the bitterest enemy of the working class. This apparently comes as a surprise to the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA). In a statement issued on Friday, the pseudo-left DSA states that, “The NYS budget fails working people, jeopardizes public safety, fails to take action on climate, and stalls job growth.” The DSA states that “Social movements, unions, left organizations, and progressive elected officials set out a bold agenda for New York to invest in an economic strategy that could provide equitable growth over the long term.” It then whines that, instead, the Democratic Party-crafted budget serves as a giveaway to the rich and fails to address the needs of the majority.
There are currently seven members of the DSA in the New York Legislature: two in the Senate and five in the Assembly. Their job, in a state government entirely controlled by this party of Wall Street, is to keep workers tied to big business. The toothless criticisms are designed to maintain the fiction that the Democrats can be pressured to move to the left. The new budget once again proves the opposite. Only a party completely independent of the Democrats, the trade unions and all of their apologists can mobilize the working class to fight for a socialist program.
Profiting off of the pandemic, CEO pay increased to record levels in 2021 while workers’ wages fell
In the second year of the pandemic, the chief executives of the top US corporations are on track to set new compensation records while the wages of their workers were reduced. This is the conclusion drawn by several analyses of pay data submitted by a group of S&P 500 corporations to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) as part of their annual filing requirements.
On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported that median pay for CEOs rose to $14.2 million last year, up from a record $13.4 million in 2020. The report said that half of the companies reported median wages for their workers increased in 2021 by 3.1 percent. However, this is less than half of last year’s inflation rate of 6.7 percent, and it means that these workers took an effective paycut.
The Journal report noted, “Most CEOs received a pay increase of 11 percent or more, and pay rose by at least 25 percent for nearly one-third of them.” It also reported that for one-third of the companies, median employee pay declined last year.
These figures are based on a review by the Journal of “pay data for more than half the index from MyLogIQ LLC.” MyLogIQ is a provider of SEC compliance services and has access to the government agency public filings database.
The CEOs of nearly half the companies reporting were paid 186 times that of median workers in 2021. The Journal report says, “That is up from 166 times in the year before the pandemic and 156 times in 2018, the first year that nearly all S&P 500 companies reported median employee pay.”
The compensation data is provided to the SEC by the corporations as part of the disclosures mandated by the Dodd-Frank Act of 2010 which was passed in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis sparked by the collapse of the mortgage-backed securities markets on Wall Street. The CEO compensation figures include the value of stock awards along with salary, cash bonuses, perks and retirement benefits.
The Journal’s report goes on to air the complaints of business executives that the pay ratio data is a “blunt instrument that offers little meaningful insight.” The corporate representatives also criticize the reporting requirements because the SEC rules “give companies significant leeway on how they rank workers globally to identify the median employee,” and the pay for median workers is determined “using the same rules that govern reported CEO pay.”
Also on Sunday, the Financial Times (FT) reported that the pay data is “raising the prospect of fresh clashes with investors and employees as the gap between their earnings and those of their staff widens to a historic multiple in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic.”
The FT’s analysis—based on information from the data company Equilar—said that CEO pay ratio shot up to 245 times that of a median employee in 2021 compared to 192 times in 2020, the largest one-year increase since the start of the disclosures in 2018. The report attributed the record gap to the stock market rally that “delivered far larger windfalls to bosses than to their employees.”
The FT also pointed out that the jump in CEO compensation was the result of bonuses that were paused or cut in 2020 during the pandemic. This makes clear that the reductions in executive compensation during the initial economic shocks of the coronavirus were little more than public relations window dressing as workers were suffering widespread unemployment and expanding poverty, as well as sickness and death from COVID-19.
It did not take long for the process of capitalist wealth accumulation for the super-rich to resume on a higher level than anything achieved prior to the pandemic. Meanwhile, some US corporations never bothered to slow down the growth of increasingly grotesque wealth inequality throughout the pandemic. At the grocery store chain Kroger, for example, the CEO pay ratio was 909 times that of a median worker’s wages in 2020, and the company has yet to file with the SEC for 2021.
A third study published on March 29 by Harvard Law School Forum on Corporate Governance based on the Equilar data reported on the early trends in executive compensation showed that CEO pay had “bounced back strongly from pandemic ‘woes’.” The report showed that CEOs in the top 75th percentile increased by 22 percent last year from $16.8 million to $20.5 million, and the pay ratio increased by 42 percent from 307.5 to 437 times a median worker’s wages.
Significantly, the Harvard report also showed that for all categories—25th percentile, median and 75th percentile—the median employee compensation was reduced from 2020 to 2021. The steepest decline was among the lowest income group, the 25th percentile, where compensation was cut by 25 percent from $44,946 to $33,493. When inflation is added to this reduction, the wages of the lowest paid employees of the top 500 companies in the US were cut by more than 30 percent.
The data reported by approximately one-half of the S&P 500 companies shows that the US financial elite have not only taken advantage of the pandemic to dramatically increase their wealth through the unprecedented rise of the stock market fueled by a massive infusion of cash into Wall Street by the Federal Reserve Bank. The corporations have also used the social devastation caused by the criminal response of the US government to the public health crisis to intensify the exploitation of the working class by slashing wages.
The Wall Street Journal report highlighted the compensation of Pat Gelsinger, CEO of Intel Corporation, who earned a package worth $179 million, which is 1,700 times the pay of its median employee who was identified as “a program manager in Malaysia” who earned a total of $104,400. The Journal said Intel justified Gelsinger’s windfall because it “reflected his experience, the challenge of transforming Intel and $50 million in compensation he gave up by leaving business software company VMware Inc.”
Another featured compensation program was that of the private equity firm KKR & Company, which paid its co-CEOs Joseph Bae and Scott Nuttall approximately $559 million and $523 million respectively. A KKR spokesperson told the Journal, “The vast majority of the compensation is performance-based stock that will have to more than double in value for the stock awards to fully vest.”
US corporate profits, CEO pay surged in 2021 while inflation slashed real wages
The corporate assault on US workers’ living standards during the pandemic intensified in 2021. While inflation slashed living standards for most of the population, corporate profits surged to their highest levels in decades, rising 25 percent year over year to $2.81 trillion. The rise is even greater—37 percent—when taxes are factored in. This is the highest figure since records began in 1948.
At the same time, according to a report by Compensation Advisory Partners, US CEO pay increased in 2021 by an average of 19 percent at the 50 companies surveyed, a record amount. Leading the field was Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who took in a staggering $246.6 million. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy received a pay package valued at $212.7 million, mostly from stock options.
Others cashing in included:
- Apple CEO Tim Cook, who took in $99 million last year
- Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, who received $178.6 million
- Chad Richison, CEO of Paycom Software, who was paid $211,131,206
- Lawrence Culp Jr., CEO of General Electric, who pocketed $73,192,032
- Mike Sievert, T-Mobile CEO, who received $54,914,015
- Leonard Schleifer, CEO of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, who took in $135,350,121.
Surging profits on Wall Street boosted the average employee bonus in the New York securities industry to a record $257,500 last year, according to state officials.
The statistics on corporate profits and executive pay expose the blatant profiteering by large corporations during the pandemic. Companies have been able to raise prices far beyond increases in production costs, vastly inflating profit margins.
According to a report by a watchdog group, the top 25 global oil companies reaped $237 billion in profits in 2021. Last year, oil giant ExxonMobil posted its largest profit in seven years, $23 billion, as increased oil prices added $100 billion to its sales revenues. Saudi Aramco, a major oil and gas company owned and managed by the Saudi royal family, reported $110 billion in profits last year, a 124 percent increase from 2020.
Logistics giant Amazon reported $33.4 billion in after-tax profits in 2021, up from $21.3 in 2020.
Despite COVID and chip shortages, US auto companies enjoyed a profit surge. Ford recorded $17.9 billion in after-tax profits, following a loss in 2020. GM reported $14.3 billion in 2021 earnings.
The official inflation rate was 6.7 percent last year. Inflation has accelerated in 2022, with prices rising 7.9 percent year over year in February 2022, eclipsing year-over-year wage gains of 5.1 in February and 5.6 percent percent in March.
According to Bloomberg Economics, the average American household will spend $5,200 more this year to buy the same goods and services it purchased last year. With prices on basic commodities set to rise even higher due to the war in Ukraine and US and NATO sanctions on Russia, a further assault on living standards is being prepared.
Even though real wages are declining in many sectors, Wall Street is expressing concern over the tight labor market, which has allowed workers to press for higher wages. The US jobs report for March, released Friday by the Labor Department, reported the addition of 431,000 jobs, the 11th straight month of job gains surpassing 400,000. The official unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent in March, close to the 3.5 percent pre-pandemic rate, which was a 50-year record low.
In fact, the figure for new jobs was lower than predicted by economists, and far below the average of 600,000 over the past six months. More threatening to the ruling class are near-record highs of unfilled jobs and voluntary quits.
In remarks Friday morning after the release of the jobs report, President Biden hailed the increase in hiring, citing “Record job creation. Record unemployment declines. Record wage gains.” However, the reality is quite different for workers, whose paltry wage gains are being eaten up by rising prices for gasoline, electricity, food and other necessities.
The most significant job gains have been for workers in the retail sector and leisure and hospitality, such as hotels and restaurants. These sectors have historically paid poverty-level wages.
The resistance of workers to laboring for near-starvation wages in the midst of a deadly pandemic, and ongoing supply chain bottlenecks due to shortages of workers in key sectors such as trucking, potentially put workers in a strong position to fight for significant improvements in living standards.
In 2021, strikes took place in a number of key industries as workers sought to fight back against rising prices and the impact of decades of wage stagnation. These struggles for the most part took the form of rebellions against the trade union bureaucracies, which for decades have worked to impose brutal cuts in wages and the destruction of working conditions, in line with their transformation into corporatist appendages of the corporations and the capitalist state.
In a number of contract struggles last year, unions settled for pay raises well below the rate of inflation, including Volvo (average 2 percent annually over 6 years), Nabisco (2-2.5 percent annual raises), Kellogg’s (one-time 3 percent for “legacy” workers), and Dana Corporation (as low as 1 percent annually for top pay scales).
In each of these cases, the unions sabotaged the struggles of workers, keeping the strikes isolated and shutting them down at the point where they threatened to seriously impact corporate profits and inspire solidarity action by other workers both in the US and internationally. Workers were forced to vote without having time to adequately review the terms of the contract and were often denied the right to see the full contract language.
At Volvo and other workplaces, unions called strikes only after workers had voted multiple times by massive margins against sellout agreements brought back by union officials.
In one of the latest acts of treachery, the Steelworkers union blocked strike action by 30,000 US oil workers and rammed through a sellout deal with wage increases far below the rate of inflation, even as the oil giants continued to gouge the public with spiraling gas prices.
In recognition of the vital services of the unions in suppressing workers’ wage demands and squashing strikes, the Biden administration has made a central focus of its anti-working class policy the promotion of the trade unions, appointing a “Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment,” including national security cabinet officials. In a report issued in February, the task force made a series of recommendations to encourage unionization by government contractors, with the aim of “promoting stability” and “minimizing disruption”—that is, preventing strikes.
Fearing that low levels of unemployment will encourage workers to battle back against raging inflation by demanding significant wage increases, US financial authorities are taking measures to slow down the economy by increasing interest rates. Remarking on the fact that there are 1.8 job openings for every unemployed worker, US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said, “By many measures, the labor market is extremely tight, significantly tighter than the very strong job market just before the pandemic,” adding that it was tight to “an unhealthy level.”
After raising rates by 0.25 percent in March, the Federal Reserve is indicating support for a more substantial 0.5 percent rise in May. The central bank has already said it plans at least six more rate increases in 2022, the first increases in three years.
The last round of rate increases set off a precipitous fall in the stock market, inducing the Federal Reserve to rescind its rate hikes. Since then, the markets have become even more inflated as the US Treasury pumped trillions of dollars into Wall Street. The turn toward deflationary policies threatens to upset this financial house of cards in dramatic fashion.
Growing sections of workers are defying the pro-corporate unions, including oil refinery workers in Richmond, California, who have voted down two sellout contracts pushed by the United Steelworkers’ union and gone on strike to secure a substantial wage increase and an end to brutal overtime and unsafe working conditions. They are joined by 5,000 teachers on strike in Sacramento, California and tens of thousands of other workers with looming contract expirations. This is part of a growing movement of workers internationally fueled by inflation, inequality and the growing threat of world war.
Reports of the unrestrained profiteering by the financial elite will only further fuel workers’ anger over declining living standards and the criminal mismanagement by all sections of the political establishment of the pandemic. The impending war danger and the demands that workers finance another huge military buildup at the expense of wages and social services will heighten class tensions.
This social anger must be consciously directed against the capitalist system, its political parties, the Democrats and Republicans, as well as the pro-capitalist trade unions. The way forward requires the building of new, genuinely democratic organizations of struggle—rank-and-file committees in every factory, school and workplace—and a political movement of the working class, international in scope, to end the subordination of the productive forces to the profit drive of big business. The working class must assume direction of economic and social life based on a new, higher principle—production for human need, not profit—that is, socialism.
The corporate assault on US workers’ living standards during the pandemic intensified in 2021. While inflation slashed living standards for most of the population, corporate profits surged to their highest levels in decades, rising 25 percent year over year to $2.81 trillion. The rise is even greater—37 percent—when taxes are factored in. This is the highest figure since records began in 1948.
At the same time, according to a report by Compensation Advisory Partners, US CEO pay increased in 2021 by an average of 19 percent at the 50 companies surveyed, a record amount. Leading the field was Discovery CEO David Zaslav, who took in a staggering $246.6 million. Amazon CEO Andy Jassy received a pay package valued at $212.7 million, mostly from stock options.
Others cashing in included:
- Apple CEO Tim Cook, who took in $99 million last year
- Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger, who received $178.6 million
- Chad Richison, CEO of Paycom Software, who was paid $211,131,206
- Lawrence Culp Jr., CEO of General Electric, who pocketed $73,192,032
- Mike Sievert, T-Mobile CEO, who received $54,914,015
- Leonard Schleifer, CEO of Regeneron Pharmaceuticals, who took in $135,350,121.
Surging profits on Wall Street boosted the average employee bonus in the New York securities industry to a record $257,500 last year, according to state officials.
The statistics on corporate profits and executive pay expose the blatant profiteering by large corporations during the pandemic. Companies have been able to raise prices far beyond increases in production costs, vastly inflating profit margins.
According to a report by a watchdog group, the top 25 global oil companies reaped $237 billion in profits in 2021. Last year, oil giant ExxonMobil posted its largest profit in seven years, $23 billion, as increased oil prices added $100 billion to its sales revenues. Saudi Aramco, a major oil and gas company owned and managed by the Saudi royal family, reported $110 billion in profits last year, a 124 percent increase from 2020.
Logistics giant Amazon reported $33.4 billion in after-tax profits in 2021, up from $21.3 in 2020.
Despite COVID and chip shortages, US auto companies enjoyed a profit surge. Ford recorded $17.9 billion in after-tax profits, following a loss in 2020. GM reported $14.3 billion in 2021 earnings.
The official inflation rate was 6.7 percent last year. Inflation has accelerated in 2022, with prices rising 7.9 percent year over year in February 2022, eclipsing year-over-year wage gains of 5.1 in February and 5.6 percent percent in March.
According to Bloomberg Economics, the average American household will spend $5,200 more this year to buy the same goods and services it purchased last year. With prices on basic commodities set to rise even higher due to the war in Ukraine and US and NATO sanctions on Russia, a further assault on living standards is being prepared.
Even though real wages are declining in many sectors, Wall Street is expressing concern over the tight labor market, which has allowed workers to press for higher wages. The US jobs report for March, released Friday by the Labor Department, reported the addition of 431,000 jobs, the 11th straight month of job gains surpassing 400,000. The official unemployment rate fell to 3.6 percent in March, close to the 3.5 percent pre-pandemic rate, which was a 50-year record low.
In fact, the figure for new jobs was lower than predicted by economists, and far below the average of 600,000 over the past six months. More threatening to the ruling class are near-record highs of unfilled jobs and voluntary quits.
In remarks Friday morning after the release of the jobs report, President Biden hailed the increase in hiring, citing “Record job creation. Record unemployment declines. Record wage gains.” However, the reality is quite different for workers, whose paltry wage gains are being eaten up by rising prices for gasoline, electricity, food and other necessities.
The most significant job gains have been for workers in the retail sector and leisure and hospitality, such as hotels and restaurants. These sectors have historically paid poverty-level wages.
The resistance of workers to laboring for near-starvation wages in the midst of a deadly pandemic, and ongoing supply chain bottlenecks due to shortages of workers in key sectors such as trucking, potentially put workers in a strong position to fight for significant improvements in living standards.
In 2021, strikes took place in a number of key industries as workers sought to fight back against rising prices and the impact of decades of wage stagnation. These struggles for the most part took the form of rebellions against the trade union bureaucracies, which for decades have worked to impose brutal cuts in wages and the destruction of working conditions, in line with their transformation into corporatist appendages of the corporations and the capitalist state.
In a number of contract struggles last year, unions settled for pay raises well below the rate of inflation, including Volvo (average 2 percent annually over 6 years), Nabisco (2-2.5 percent annual raises), Kellogg’s (one-time 3 percent for “legacy” workers), and Dana Corporation (as low as 1 percent annually for top pay scales).
In each of these cases, the unions sabotaged the struggles of workers, keeping the strikes isolated and shutting them down at the point where they threatened to seriously impact corporate profits and inspire solidarity action by other workers both in the US and internationally. Workers were forced to vote without having time to adequately review the terms of the contract and were often denied the right to see the full contract language.
At Volvo and other workplaces, unions called strikes only after workers had voted multiple times by massive margins against sellout agreements brought back by union officials.
In one of the latest acts of treachery, the Steelworkers union blocked strike action by 30,000 US oil workers and rammed through a sellout deal with wage increases far below the rate of inflation, even as the oil giants continued to gouge the public with spiraling gas prices.
In recognition of the vital services of the unions in suppressing workers’ wage demands and squashing strikes, the Biden administration has made a central focus of its anti-working class policy the promotion of the trade unions, appointing a “Task Force on Worker Organizing and Empowerment,” including national security cabinet officials. In a report issued in February, the task force made a series of recommendations to encourage unionization by government contractors, with the aim of “promoting stability” and “minimizing disruption”—that is, preventing strikes.
Fearing that low levels of unemployment will encourage workers to battle back against raging inflation by demanding significant wage increases, US financial authorities are taking measures to slow down the economy by increasing interest rates. Remarking on the fact that there are 1.8 job openings for every unemployed worker, US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said, “By many measures, the labor market is extremely tight, significantly tighter than the very strong job market just before the pandemic,” adding that it was tight to “an unhealthy level.”
After raising rates by 0.25 percent in March, the Federal Reserve is indicating support for a more substantial 0.5 percent rise in May. The central bank has already said it plans at least six more rate increases in 2022, the first increases in three years.
The last round of rate increases set off a precipitous fall in the stock market, inducing the Federal Reserve to rescind its rate hikes. Since then, the markets have become even more inflated as the US Treasury pumped trillions of dollars into Wall Street. The turn toward deflationary policies threatens to upset this financial house of cards in dramatic fashion.
Growing sections of workers are defying the pro-corporate unions, including oil refinery workers in Richmond, California, who have voted down two sellout contracts pushed by the United Steelworkers’ union and gone on strike to secure a substantial wage increase and an end to brutal overtime and unsafe working conditions. They are joined by 5,000 teachers on strike in Sacramento, California and tens of thousands of other workers with looming contract expirations. This is part of a growing movement of workers internationally fueled by inflation, inequality and the growing threat of world war.
Reports of the unrestrained profiteering by the financial elite will only further fuel workers’ anger over declining living standards and the criminal mismanagement by all sections of the political establishment of the pandemic. The impending war danger and the demands that workers finance another huge military buildup at the expense of wages and social services will heighten class tensions.
This social anger must be consciously directed against the capitalist system, its political parties, the Democrats and Republicans, as well as the pro-capitalist trade unions. The way forward requires the building of new, genuinely democratic organizations of struggle—rank-and-file committees in every factory, school and workplace—and a political movement of the working class, international in scope, to end the subordination of the productive forces to the profit drive of big business. The working class must assume direction of economic and social life based on a new, higher principle—production for human need, not profit—that is, socialism.
NYC Subway Shooting Person of Interest Frank R. James Ranted About Race Wars, Homelessness
Frank R. James, the 62-year-old person of interest in the Brooklyn Subway mass shooting on Tuesday, had a history of incendiary social media posts. He used them to rant about coming race wars, gun violence, homeless people, and how outreach workers are “homosexual predators.”
On Tuesday morning, 10 people were shot in a Brooklyn subway station while another 13 were injured. Sunday night, just days before the Brooklyn attack, the primary person of interest Frank R. James ranted in a YouTube video about how the war in Ukraine could bring about a race war to exterminate black people.
Warning: Extreme language follows…
“They’re white, you’re not. They’re doing that to each other? What do they think they’re going to do to you?” he said. “It’s just a matter of time before these white motherfuckers say, ‘Hey listen, enough is enough, these n*****s gotta go.’ What’re you going to do? You gonna fight. And guess what? You gonna die.”
A person is aided outside a subway car in the Brooklyn borough of New York, Tuesday, April 12, 2022. A gunman filled a rush-hour subway train with smoke and shot multiple people, leaving wounded commuters bleeding on a Brooklyn platform as others ran screaming, authorities said. (Will B Wylde via AP)
In another video posted on April 11, James ranted about how he “wanted to kill people.”
“I’ve been through a lot of shit, where I can say I wanted to kill people,” he said. “I wanted to watch them die right in front of my fucking face immediately. But I thought about the fact, ‘Hey, I don’t want to go to no fucking prison. Fuck that! I’m not going to no fucking prison. I’m just not.”
In another video posted on March 27, James ranted against homeless people in New York City’s subway system and criticized Mayor Eric Adams.
“Eric Adams, Eric Adams, what the fuck, what are you doing, brother? What’s happening with this homeless situation? I got on the E train, every fucking car … every car I went to was loaded with homeless people,” he said.
NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell said the department did not consider James’ comments as threats against Adams.
New York City Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell speaks at a news briefing on April 12, 2022 in New York City. A gunman in a gas mask and construction vest set off a smoke grenade and opened fire on a subway today at the 36th Street and Fourth Avenue station in the Sunset Park neighborhood of Brooklyn. Authorities named 62-year-old Philadelphia man Frank R. James as a person of interest. (Alexi J. Rosenfeld/Getty Images)
“We’re not calling them threats. He made some concerning posts, or someone made some concerning posts,” she said. “They were general topics of concern. Complaints about homelessness, complaints about New York.”
Another video from February 20 featured James talking about dealing with mental health outreach workers through the 1970s and 1990s, referring to them as “homosexual predators.”
“So as you listen to the mayor talking about how they want to bring in health workers, they want to help the homeless … there’s no help. It’s going to fail! Because all these motherfuckers are predators. They’re homosexual predators trying to turn everybody out,” he said.
His Facebook page listed under the name Frank Whitaker featured a variety of incendiary posts and links, including a video in which he discussed how to make a bomb. He also lamented about the newly minted Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson marrying a white man.
“She married the devil,” said James.
No deaths have yet been reported in the shooting and Frank James still remains at large.
New York City Subway Shooting: Suspect with Gun, Possible Explosives Wounds 5
Five people have been shot and injured in the New York City subway system Tuesday morning just prior to 8:30 AM, according to emerging reports.
UPDATE 2: The Associated Press reports at least 10 people were shot and “29 in all were treated at hospitals for gunshot wounds, smoke inhalation and other conditions.” Police also reportedly “found a rental truck possibly connected to the violence.”
UPDATE: CNN reports FDNY spokesperson Amanda Farinacci indicates “Eight people were shot and eight others were injured following a shooting at a Brooklyn subway this morning,”
The New York Post reports police think the attacker set off a “smoke grenade” before discharging the weapon.
The Post notes “at least five people were shot in the third car of the train and others were injured by smoke inhalation. A pregnant woman was among those hospitalized.”
Original story continues below:
NBC New York identifies the location of the incident as the Brooklyn subway station and notes that “several law enforcement sources said the shooter may have thrown a device before opening fire.”
The New York Times reports while investigators are unsure if explosives were detonated during the attack they have ascertained since “that no active explosive devices had been found at the scene.”
Police and emergency responders gather at the site of a reported shooting of multiple people outside of the 36 St subway station on April 12, 2022 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty)
Members of the New York Police Department and emergency personel crowd the streets near the scene (ANGELA WEISS/AFP via Getty Images)
NBC New York observes that “several undetonated devices were also found at the location.”
Police are searching for the attacker, who is described as being “5 feet 5 inches tall and 180 pounds…[and] wearing a gas mask and an orange construction vest.”
Police and emergency responders gather at the site of a reported shooting of multiple people outside of the 36 St subway station on April 12, 2022 in the Brooklyn borough of New York City. (Spencer Platt/Getty)
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange
NYPD Releases Photo of Frank James, ‘Person of Interest’ in Subway Shooting
The NYPD released a photo of Frank James hours after the NYC subway attack, referring to James as a “person of interest.”
Breitbart News reported that Tuesday’s subway attack occurred just before 8:30 a.m. Initial reports said that five people were shot and numerous others injured but CNN later quoted New York City Fire Department (FDNY) spokesperson Amanda Farinacci indicating, “Eight people were shot and eight others were injured following a shooting at a Brooklyn subway.”
With a manhunt for the shooting suspect underway, New York City Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell described the suspect in Tuesday’s New York City subway attack as a black male, approximately 5′ 5″ tall, “with a heavy build,” and wearing a green “construction-type vest with a hooded sweatshirt.”
BronxNews12 reported, “Frank James as a person of interest in the shooting.”
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange
New York City Manhunt: Police Describe Subway Suspect as Black Male in ‘Construction-Type Vest’
New York City Police Commissioner Keechant Sewell described the suspect in Tuesday’s New York City subway attack as a black male, approximately 5′ 5″ tall, “with a heavy build,” and wearing a green “construction-type vest with a hooded sweatshirt.”
Breitbart News reported that the attack occurred just before 8:30 a.m. Initial reports said that five people were shot and numerous others injured.
As time passed, CNN noted New York City Fire Department (FDNY) spokesperson Amanda Farinacci indicated, “Eight people were shot and eight others were injured following a shooting at a Brooklyn subway.”
ABC News reports that the suspect allegedly used “a .380 handgun” to carry out the attack.
Commissioner Sewell said the shooter “donned what appeared to be a gas mask. He then took a canister out of his bag and opened it.” She indicated the subway train then filled with smoke and he opened fire.
A manhunt for the suspect is underway. The suspect is described as dangerous, and New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) is urging New Yorker to be vigilant and use caution.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange
Democrat New York Lt. Gov. Brian Benjamin Resigns After Arrest on Bribery Conspiracy Indictment
Democrat New York Lieutenant Governor Brian Benjamin resigned from office hours after his arrest on Tuesday on a federal bribery conspiracy indictment, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D-NY) announced.
Hochul, who selected Benjamin to serve as her Lt. Gov. less than a year ago, said:
I have accepted Brian Benjamin’s resignation effective immediately. While the legal process plays out, it is clear to both of us that he cannot continue to serve as Lieutenant Governor. New Yorkers deserve absolute confidence in their government, and I will continue working every day to deliver for them.
Benjamin’s resignation came hours after he surrendered to federal authorities and was arrested and charged with one count of federal bribery, one count of wire fraud, one county of conspiracy to commit those crimes, and two counts of falsifying records.
As the Associated Press reported:
Benjamin was accused of participating in a scheme to obtain campaign contributions from a real estate developer in exchange for Benjamin’s agreement to use his influence as a state senator to get a $50,000 grant of state funds for a nonprofit organization the developer controlled.
[…]
The indictment said Benjamin and others acting at his direction or on his behalf also engaged in a series of lies and deceptions to cover up the scheme.
They falsified campaign donor forms, misled municipal regulators and provided false information in vetting forms Benjamin submitted while he was being considered to be appointed as lieutenant governor, the indictment said.
United States Attorney Damian Williams called Benjamin’s actions “a quid pro quo.”
“This is a simple story of corruption. Taxpayer money for campaign contributions. A quid quo pro. This for that. That’s bribery, plain and simple,” Williams said during a press conference shortly before Benjamin’s resignation.
Williams also said Benjamin “abused his power” in a written statement.
“As alleged, Brian Benjamin used his power as a New York state senator to secure a state-funded grant in exchange for contributions to his own political campaigns,” Williams said. “By doing so, Benjamin abused his power and effectively used state funds to support his political campaigns.”
Hochul, who became New York’s governor after former Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) resigned amid a sexual harassment scandal, is running for a full term as governor this year with Benjamin as her running mate.
Although Benjamin resigned, his name will likely still appear on the Democrat primary ballot this June. “Because Mr. Benjamin was designated as the Democratic Party’s nominee for lieutenant governor, his name could only be removed at this point if he were to move out of the state, die or seek another office,” the New York Times reported.
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