Share the Wealth

Our new wealthy President has done a great job   in his quest to lure some of the wealthiest men in America to be in his cabinet. Why are they there when they all seem to have the best of everything at their fingertips in life? Could it be that now they really wish to help the average struggling American that can hardly make ends meet? It has been said that the combined wealth of now the elite in government is worth one-third of the world’s wealth. These men are all billionaires going into their Federal jobs. Why did Trump already sign a executive order for a   federal   hiring freeze? The average American could use those jobs. Could it be that these wealthy guys plan to share their personal wealth with the average American? Ha! Hell NO! The division of wealth in America now can be compared to the middle ages where there were the very wealthy in their castles and the poor townspeople suffered in poverty. We need a modern day robin hood.

There are people earning $8 dollars per hour for many years with little or no raises. They have to wait at times for a 5 cent raise once a year which is not guaranteed. At least Washington D.C. now   has a state district with the highest hourly minimum wage at $11.50 per hour. These are jobs that were once considered middle class but are now living on the poverty level with low wage jobs. How did such a job inequality happen on such a large scale? Housing is expensive, student loans are through the roof and even the cost of food is expensive. What are these wealthy leaders going to do to help Americans? A average home in Queens or Brooklyn in the 70’s were the average middle class home. 40 years ago a truck driver could live comfortably in these average small homes. They cost about $60 thousand dollars to buy. Now the same home could go for $800 thousand dollars. It is not enough that the foreclosure mess already took hard working people’s homes? Why are homes so expensive to purchase now?

Kids with advanced degrees who are professionals can’t afford to live in these modest homes now. The homes were built for teachers, firemen and nurses and they can’t afford to own a home now. People who grew up middle –class are now living in rental small apartments unable to ever afford a home. Even the face of the fast-food worker has changed. In the 70’s the face of the fast food worker were teenagers now 75% of he faces working at fast food jobs are adults with children working 2 fast food jobs per day and barely getting by. The wealthy blame the people for not having more wealth as they gobble up the business profits for themselves and never trickle down the wealth to their hard working employees.

Fast food workers often get no benefits and no vacation time. Their hours can be reduced at any time. It is hard to smile at the customers. They have to pay for their food even though at the end of the day they have to toss the extra made food in the trash. There is a protest group called Fight for the Fifteen that is fighting for the minimum wage to increase to $15 dollars per hour. If they were successful then some of these people wouldn’t have to work two $8 per hour jobs and could spend their extra time on more education or taking care of their own kids that would eventually cost the government less money in food stamps and other things they provide to the super poor.

The top companies in the fast food industry like KFC, Taco Bell, Burger King, Pizza Hut, Wendy’s and McDonalds made   combined   profits of $6.6 billion dollars in 2015. Meanwhile 52% of their employees receive some form of government subsidies in order to get by. No one wants to have food stamps and would love to be a le to have insurance through their job. There has always been income inequality in America but today it is more extreme. Until recently even the so called progressive companies like Google, Facebook, Apple and EBAY, the high-teck places  have some employees that get free food and gyms and child care for some employees but have bus drivers that shuttle worker to the building jobs who are on minimum wage that sleep in their cars because they can’t even afford an apartment in the ritzy neighborhoods that the jobs are located in.

This wage divide must stop Mr. President. It can stop with sharing your wealth and the wealth of the people you chose to surround yourself with if you really want to help Americans.  Corporate wealth for the captains of a company need to be shared more evenly.