Summary

Income inequality in the United States is about more than the distance between high and low earners. It also shapes whether a paycheck covers housing, food, transportation, healthcare, and care responsibilities. This episode examines income inequality and economic security through wage growth, local living costs, and public policy, asking why paid work can coexist with financial instability.

Key Takeaway

• Employment does not by itself establish that a household can afford local essentials.
• Wage inequality in America requires attention to earnings distribution, prices, working hours, and benefits.
• ALICE measures hardship beyond the official poverty threshold, using household and local cost estimates.
• Policies governing wages, housing, healthcare, and public support can improve economic mobility.

Why Is Income Inequality Rising?

The question needs a timeframe and a measure. Income includes more than wages, and national averages can conceal differences among workers. The Economic Policy Institute’s historical analysis of wage stagnation emphasizes bargaining power, labor-market institutions, and policy choices. Its account helps explain wage suppression as a structural argument, rather than a claim that every worker’s pay has fallen every year.

Insufficient income growth can leave a family behind even when its nominal earnings rise. Real wages account for inflation, while a household budget also depends on location, hours worked, and unavoidable expenses. Income stagnation and unequal access to well-paid work are related problems, but they should not be treated as identical. Our overview of economic inequality and the price of the American Dream connects these distinctions to the wider distribution of resources.

What ALICE Adds to the Picture

United For ALICE reported that 42% of U.S. households were below its ALICE Threshold in 2023: 13% below the federal poverty level and another 29% above it but unable to afford the framework’s local essentials. This is a household measure of financial hardship, not a statement that 42% of individuals were officially poor or that all those households had full-time employment.

ALICE stands for Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed. Its survival budgets vary with household composition and location. A national poverty line, a local essentials budget, and a broader measure of economic security answer different questions. Our episode on the cost of living in America follows the practical consequences when necessary spending absorbs most of a paycheck.

Corporate Profits, Wages, and Prices

The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis analysis of corporate profits documents higher post-pandemic profitability and substantial distributions to shareholders. That finding matters for how economic gains are shared, but it does not establish that profit-taking alone caused inflation. Productivity, supply conditions, demand, market power, and compensation all deserve separate examination.

Similarly, outsourcing can change bargaining relationships and which workers share a firm’s gains, but its effects depend on the industry and employment arrangement. Explaining wage inequality requires comparing evidence rather than assigning every change to a single cause. For competing approaches to markets and social outcomes, explore Milton Friedman’s free-market economics and the well-being economy’s measures of progress.

Economic Security as a Policy Question

The Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality argues that public choices can reduce hardship. Wage standards, predictable work, affordable services, and accessible benefits influence whether households can build a buffer. Economic mobility depends partly on that stability: a missed rent payment or unaffordable medical bill can interrupt work and education. Our discussion of affordability and the 2026 midterm elections considers how these pressures enter political debate.

Income inequality in the United States connects these household experiences to the distribution of earnings and access to economic security.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1: How are income inequality and economic security connected?

Unequal resources affect a household’s ability to meet essential costs and absorb shocks. Security also depends on local prices, family needs, benefits, and savings.

Q2: What does wage inequality measure?

It concerns differences in workers’ pay. Income inequality is broader because households may also receive investment income, business income, and transfers.

Q3: Does the ALICE figure equal the official poverty rate?

No. The 2023 figure combines households below the federal poverty level with additional households below ALICE’s locally estimated essentials threshold.

Q4: Can wages rise while families still struggle?

Yes. Higher pay may not cover a household’s essential expenses, especially when working hours change or housing and care costs are unusually high.

Q5: Which policies can support economic mobility?

The episode examines wages, worker bargaining power, affordable housing and healthcare, and public benefits. Their effects should be evaluated through evidence about household outcomes.

Related Episodes

• The Housing Crisis in America: Safe Parking Programs and Vehicle Residency
• U.S. Job Growth Slows to a Crawl Amid August Weakness
• Wage Stagnation and the Purpose of the Corporation

Sources & Further Reading

• Brookings Institution — https://www.brookings.edu/articles/a-dozen-ways-to-be-middle-class/
• Brookings Institution — https://www.brookings.edu/articles/in-every-corner-of-the-country-the-middle-class-struggles-with-affordability/
• Brookings Institution — https://www.brookings.edu/articles/rising-inequality-a-major-issue-of-our-time/
• California Legislative Analyst’s Office — https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/793
• CNBC — https://www.cnbc.com/2025/12/26/how-americans-are-responding-to-the-affordability-crisis.html
• CNN — https://www.cnn.com/2025/12/16/economy/affordability-wage-growth-inflation
• Coalition for a Prosperous America — https://prosperousamerica.org/americas-cost-of-living-crisis-is-a-wage-problem-not-a-price-problem/
• Cornell Chronicle — https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2023/12/poverty-political-choice-michener-tells-nys-senate
• Current Affairs — https://www.currentaffairs.org/news/politicians-dont-want-to-talk-about-poverty
• Economic Policy Institute — https://www.epi.org/publication/charting-wage-stagnation/
• Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta — https://www.atlantafed.org/research-and-data/data/wage-growth-tracker
• Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis — https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-economy/2025/apr/whats-driving-surge-us-corporate-profits
• Forbes — https://www.forbes.com/sites/bryanrobinson/2025/01/24/the-wage-crisis-of-2025-73-of-workers-struggling/
• Forbes — https://www.forbes.com/sites/josiecox/2025/11/03/income-inequality-is-surging-in-the-us-new-oxfam-report-shows/
• Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality — https://www.georgetownpoverty.org/issues/poverty-is-a-policy-choice/
• Inequality.org — https://inequality.org/facts/income-inequality/
• Institute for Policy Studies — https://www.ips-dc.org/report-americas-20-largest-low-wage-employers-and-the-affordability-crisis/
• KCRA — https://www.kcra.com/article/millions-americans-skip-meals-cut-utilities-afford-health-care/70741101
• Marketplace — https://marketplace.org/story/2026/02/06/why-is-everything-so-hard-to-afford-now
• PBS NewsHour — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5hIMQxz7a8
• Oxfam America — https://www.oxfamamerica.org/explore/issues/economic-justice/extreme-inequality-and-poverty/
• Pew Research Center — https://www.pewresearch.org/race-and-ethnicity/2024/05/31/the-state-of-the-american-middle-class/
• Pew Research Center — https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/04/20/how-the-american-middle-class-has-changed-in-the-past-five-decades/
• The Guardian — https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/mar/14/americans-struggle-affordability-despite-trump-claims
• Trading Economics — https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/corporate-profits
• UC Davis Center for Poverty and Inequality Research — https://poverty.ucdavis.edu/podcast/minimum-wage-and-safety-net-programs
• United For ALICE — https://unitedforalice.org/meet-alice
• United For ALICE — https://www.unitedforalice.org/national-overview#4.5/36.316/-95.842
• Urban Institute — https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/poverty-results-structural-barriers-not-personal-choices-safety-net-programs-should-reflect-fact
• USA Today — https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2026/01/25/paychecks-not-keeping-up-with-cost-of-living/88306961007/
• USAFacts — https://usafacts.org/answers/are-wages-keeping-up-with-inflation/country/united-states/
• Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States
• Wikipedia — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_corporate_profits_and_losses

1

Um, imagine looking at a thermometer, right?

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But it's placed only in the penthouse of a massive skyscraper.

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Okay.

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And it says the temperature is like a perfect 72 degrees.

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Everything is comfortable.

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Sounds nice.

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Right.

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But that reading completely ignores the fact that down on the ground floor,

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it is absolutely freezing.

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Right.

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And, you know, today that is exactly how we measure the United States economy.

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It really is.

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I mean, if you look at the macro-level cheerleading on the news, you know,

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the GDP growth, the stock market hitting record highs, the headline unemployment

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rate, you would absolutely think the entire building is comfortably at 72 degrees.

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Yeah.

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But we know that's not the case.

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So welcome to today's deep dive.

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Our mission today is to step out of that penthouse.

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Exactly.

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We're going to examine the structural math of everyday survival for the American

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working and middle classes.

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We're looking at a huge stack of sources today.

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Um, major reports from Pew Research, the Economic Policy Institute, Oxfam,

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the Institute for Policy Studies and the Alice framework.

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Right.

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Because we want to bridge that massive gap between the rosy official numbers

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and the lived reality of everyday Americans, the people who are, you know,

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working harder than ever, just to fall further behind, we're going to look

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right past the macro-level cheerleading and examine the actual structural math of

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survival.

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Okay.

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Let's unpack this.

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Because the gap between those economic indicators and what you, the listener

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might actually be living through.

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It really comes down to a fundamental miscalculation of what it means to be

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struggling in America right now.

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It does.

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It completely does.

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Like we still use the official federal poverty level as our baseline for

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economic hardship.

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Yeah.

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But trying to measure modern financial reality with that metric is, uh, it's

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like trying to measure the internet using a wooden ruler from the 1960s.

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That's a great way to put it.

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It just fundamentally misunderstands the cost of living today.

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It doesn't account for, you know, broadband or childcare.

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Right.

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The official poverty line is entirely inadequate.

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I mean, it was originally developed decades ago by taking the cost of a

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minimum food diet and simply multiplying it by three.

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Wait, just multiplying food by three.

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That's it.

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That's it.

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It completely ignores modern geographic realities, the explosion in housing

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costs or basic necessities.

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And that is where the Alice framework completely redefines our understanding

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of the economy.

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Okay.

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Alice, I saw this in the notes.

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It stands for asset-limited, income-constrained, employed.

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Yes.

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employed.

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So these are people who actively have jobs.

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Right.

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They are often working full time, and they actually earn above that outdated

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official poverty line.

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Okay.

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But they do not earn enough to afford the basic, bare-bones necessities in the

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specific counties and communities where they live.

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The numbers on this are what really stopped me in my tracks.

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Cause nationwide, about 13% of US households live below the official federal

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poverty level, right?

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But then another 29% of households fall into this Alice category.

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Yeah.

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So when you combine those two groups, you were looking at a staggering 42% of

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US households falling below a true survival threshold.

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It's massive.

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Almost half the country is mathematically unable to afford basic survival.

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What's fascinating here is how that 42% completely shifts the narrative away

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from unemployment.

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We always talk about jobs, right?

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But Alice proves this isn't primarily an unemployment problem.

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It's an employment problem.

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Exactly.

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We have a massive segment of the population working full-time in essential

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jobs whose wages mathematically cannot cover their geographically specific

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living costs.

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Let's make that math real for a second.

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Yeah.

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Franklin County, Ohio, from the report: a true survival budget, meaning just

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housing, childcare, food, transportation, healthcare, and basic tech for one adult

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and one school for each child there.

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It's $46,932 a year.

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Right.

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A bare-bones budget.

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But the official poverty line for that family size is only $18,310.

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Yeah.

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The gap between what the government says you need and what reality demands is

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almost $30,000.

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And look at the people trying to bridge that gap.

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The report uses the example of a full-time personal care aide in that area.

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Right.

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They make the median wage of $14.51 an hour.

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So they are going to fall nearly $17,000 short of that basic survival

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budget.

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Wow.

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It's a structural deficit built into the wage itself.

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And it extends into fields that might really surprise people, like the nonprofit

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sector, where people literally dedicate their careers to caring for others.

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22% of workers in that sector are living below the LS threshold.

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Yeah.

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And if you break it down to socialists, the sub sectors, that number jumps to 32%.

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She's nearly one in three nonprofit social workers struggling to survive

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themselves, right?

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Which, I mean, it forces you to look at what exactly is draining their bank

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account so aggressively.

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If 42% of the country is living below the true cost of basic survival, what

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exactly is making those basics so wildly expensive?

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Well, West Health and Gallup survey paints a very grim picture of the trade-offs

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people are making to cope with those expenses.

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Roughly 82 million Americans are making dangerous sacrifices to afford

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essential services.

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82 million.

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Yeah.

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They're skipping meals, rationing necessary medications, cutting back on

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utilities like heating and water.

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Like the story of Sheila Nesbitt for the sources.

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She's a 65-year-old retired librarian.

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She lowers her thermostat and huddles under blankets just to ward off the cold.

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She skips lunch.

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She skips her cholesterol and blood pressure medications.

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And all of this is just to afford a $90 medication that her Medicare plan

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doesn't cover.

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It's heartbreaking.

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And people hear a story like Sheila's, or they hear about ALICE families and

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they immediately jumped to the budgeting argument.

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Oh, yeah.

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You know the one.

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Right.

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So what does this all mean?

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Are people just bad at budgeting? The whole lecture about buying too much coffee

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or avocado toast or just being irresponsible with money?

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Yeah.

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But Joey Kerry, a financial advisor from our sources, points out how

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completely detached from reality.

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Working-class people aren't spending lavishly.

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The fundamental math of staying alive has simply changed.

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Exactly.

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It's not just inflation.

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It's a structural misalignment.

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Ascentive like healthcare, education, and childcare have surged in price at a

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rate that completely outpaces standard inflation.

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So I want to dig into why those specific basics are so expensive now.

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Because the sources talk about this economic theory called Baumol's

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BOMEL's cost disease.

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Oh, yes.

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BOMEL's cost disease.

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And I'm still trying to wrap my head around it.

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Like, how does an explosion in tech productivity make my local daycare more

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expensive?

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It's fascinating.

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Think about it as a structural misalignment between different types of

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labor. So in high-productivity sectors like technology, software engineering,

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finance output per worker has skyrocketed over the last few decades because of

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automation and digital tools.

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Okay.

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So one software engineer can write code that serves millions of people.

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Exactly.

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Because their productivity is so high, those companies can pay very high wages.

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Accents.

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You produce massive value.

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You get a massive check.

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But then you have labor-intensive essential sectors.

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Think about healthcare, childcare, education, productivity in those fields

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hasn't drastically increased because you can't really automate them.

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Right.

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It still takes a teacher the exact same amount of time to teach a class of 20

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students today as it did 50 years ago.

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Yeah, you can't speed up a nurse holding someone's hand or a childcare worker

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watching a toddler.

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Exactly.

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But and here is the mechanism behind BOMEL's cost disease to attract and

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retain workers.

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Those essential sectors still have to raise their wages to compete with the

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high productivity sectors.

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Oh, I see.

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Because if they don't, everyone would just go work in tech or finance or at least

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try to.

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Plus, these essential services have to compete for the same urban real estate.

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So competition for labor and space pushes up the cost of these essential

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services for everyone.

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The cost of living basically becomes anchored to the top of the economy.

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So the cost of a doctor's visit or a month of daycare is priced as if everyone

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paying for it is making a software engineer's salary.

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Yes.

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But median purchasing power has remained mostly flat.

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So the expenses are geared toward top-end incomes and it leaves the middle

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and lower classes to absorb the shock.

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Precisely.

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But wait, American workers overall are more productive than ever, right?

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Oh, absolutely.

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If productivity drives wealth, why hasn't everyone's paycheck gone up to match

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that overall increased output?

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I mean, that seems like the defining economic question of our era.

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It absolutely is.

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Economists refer to this phenomenon as the great decoupling.

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The great decoupling.

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Yeah.

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The Pew Research data on this is wild.

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The American middle class has steadily shrunk since 1971.

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61% of adults were solidly in the middle class.

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Right.

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By 2023, that fell to just 51%.

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Meanwhile, the lower and upper tiers both grew.

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Yeah, it's hollowing out.

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Yeah.

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And the statistic that explains why this happened comes from the Economic

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Policy Institute.

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Okay.

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Between 1948 and 1973, productivity and typical worker pay grew together.

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They were virtually locked in step.

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Productivity went up 97% and worker pay went up 91%.

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So the wealth generated by the American workforce was distributed back to the

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American workforce.

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Exactly.

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But from 1973 to 2013, that link completely shattered.

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This is the stat that blew my mind.

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Productivity surged by 74%.

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But typical worker pay grew by a meager 9%.

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9%.

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Let's play this out.

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Here's where it gets really interesting.

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Imagine you work in a pie factory.

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Yeah, I like pies.

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Right.

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For 25 years, if you and your coworkers baked more pies, you got to take home a

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proportionally bigger slice.

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You bake twice as many pies.

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You're sliced up.

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That's perfect sense.

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But since 1973, you have been baking 74% more pies, and your slice only grew by 9%.

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You're doing way more work, generating way more value, but you aren't seeing the

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reward.

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Exactly.

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Where did the rest of the pies go?

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And to be clear, this isn't just a phenomenon affecting minimum wage workers.

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Real wages for young college graduates actually fell between 2000 and 2013.

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Yeah.

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Doing everything right, getting the degree, increasing your personal productivity.

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It's still resulted in a pay cut against the cost of living.

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So why did a decouple?

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Well, the decoupling was driven by several major structural shifts starting in the

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late 1970s.

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We saw massive policy choices favoring corporate deregulation.

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We saw the deliberate suppression and decline of union power, which removed

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collective bargaining leverage.

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And we saw increased globalization, which allowed companies to offshore labor.

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The combination of these factors entirely severed the mechanism that linked overall

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economic growth to worker compensation.

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So the wealth was generated.

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The workers baked the extra pies.

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But the mechanism distributing that wealth back to the people who generated it was

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intentionally dismantled.

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Yes.

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And those pies didn't just vanish into thin air.

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They were captured by someone.

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They absolutely were.

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If we connect this to the bigger picture, we have essentially witnessed a massive

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wealth vacuum over the last four decades and the data points precisely to where

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the missing ranges went, where extreme executive compensation, stock buybacks,

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and policy choices that heavily favor the wealthy while stripping the safety net

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from the working class.

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Yeah.

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The Oxfam findings show the sheer scale of this vacuum since 1989; the top

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point 1% gained an average of $39.5 million in wealth.

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$39.5 million.

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During that exact same period, the bottom 20% gained less than $8,500.

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It's staggering.

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And if you look at the corporate suite in 1965, CEOs made about 20 times what a

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typical worker made.

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By 2013, that ratio had exploded to nearly 300 to one.

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And it becomes even more extreme when you look at what the Institute for

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Policy Studies calls the low wage 20.

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The low wage.

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Yeah.

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This is a group of major employers that includes massive corporations like

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Amazon, Walmart, and Starbucks.

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The average CEO pay at these 20 firms reached $18.6 million.

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Wow.

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That is an 899-to-one ratio compared to their median workers.

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Starbucks actually hit an astonishing 6,666-to-one ratio.

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Wait, really?

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6,666 times the median worker's pay.

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Yes.

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Wait, is this just a free market naturally rewarding leadership or is the

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game structurally rigged?

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Because there's a very dark irony here.

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What's that?

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We have massively profitable companies paying wages so low that their employees

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qualify for that Alice threshold we talked about earlier.

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If a Walmart or Amazon worker isn't paid enough to survive, they have to rely

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on SNF food stamps and Medicaid, which means we, the taxpayers, are effectively

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subsidizing the payroll for Fortune 500 companies.

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Exactly.

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When you look at the mechanics of it, it is a deliberate business model.

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It is not a market accident.

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Between 2019 and 2024, those same low-wage 20 companies spent $260 billion on

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stock buybacks.

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Okay.

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Can you explain how a stock buyback actually extracts wealth from a workers

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pocket?

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Because I think a lot of people here stock buybacks and just sort of tune out

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the financial jargon.

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Sure.

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Simply put, a stock buyback is when a company uses its cash profits to buy

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its own shares of stock on the open market.

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By buying up their own shares, they reduce the total number of shares available.

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Okay.

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So the supply goes down.

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Right.

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By the basic law of supply and demand, the remaining shares suddenly become

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more valuable.

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Since CEOs and top executives receive the vast majority of their compensation in

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stock, this maneuver artificially inflates their personal wealth.

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So instead of taking that $260 billion in cash profit and investing it in

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better equipment, or I don't know, raising wages for the people actually doing

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the work, they use the cash to inflate the stock price, which triggers massive

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bonuses for the executives.

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Yes.

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That $260 billion was cash legally available to the company.

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The Institute for Policy Studies notes that that money alone could have lifted

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over 1 million workers to a living wage.

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A million workers.

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It is a direct siphoning of resources away from the ground floor to the penthouse.

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And this corporate reality sits alongside some very specific political

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choices that compound the pressure on the working class.

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And, you know, just to be completely clear to you listening, we are just

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impartially reporting what's in these sources.

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We aren't taking partisan sides here.

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Right.

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We're just looking at the data presented in the report.

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Exactly.

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And when you look at recent policy changes, the numbers paint a stark contrast to

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the political claims that the economy is roaring.

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For example, the reports note that the Trump administration's tariffs actively

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added an estimated $1,700 a year in costs for U.S.

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families through higher prices on everyday goods.

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And at the same time, we are seeing legislative proposals that target the

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very safety nets subsidizing those low wages we just talked about.

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The legislation referred to as the big beautiful bill cuts $1 trillion from Medicaid

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and $186 billion from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program over the

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next decade.

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So the cost of basic goods goes up by $1,700.

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The corporate wages stay stagnant and the programs catching the people falling

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through the cracks get slashed by over a trillion dollars.

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Yes.

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And the administration is also attempting to remove overtime protections for

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nearly four million home care workers.

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Wow.

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And on the flip side of that, the Oxfam report projects that this exact same bill

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reduces taxes for the top 0.1% by an average of $311,000.

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So the live reality for workers is higher costs at the register, suppressed

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wages at the factory and fewer protections from the government directly

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contrasted with six-figure tax windfalls at the very top.

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It's just math.

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Exactly.

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When the cost of living outpaces wages for decades and the social safety net is

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simultaneously dismantled, the affordability crisis ceases to be a temporary glitch.

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It is the baked-in mathematical result of how the economy is currently structured,

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which brings us back to where we started.

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If you are listening to this and you feel completely exhausted,

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trying to keep your head above water, if you were stressing over a medical bill

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or panicked about the rising cost of groceries or wondering how you will ever

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afford to fix your car, you need to know that this is not a personal failure.

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No, it's really not.

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You are not bad at budgeting.

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The structural math of the American economy is empirically demonstrably

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stacked against you.

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The middle class is actively shrinking.

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The Alice data proves that 42% of the country cannot afford the true cost of

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basic survival.

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And the wedge between how much value you produce and how much you get paid has

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allowed the wealth you generate to be aggressively vacuumed up to the top

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0.1% and corporate executives.

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Before we wrap up, I want to leave you with a final thought to mull over.

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We talked about how 42% of households are below the Alice survival threshold.

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But consider this metric from the sources.

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44% of US workers now rely on a side gig just to pay their basic bills.

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Almost half the workforce.

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Half the workforce needs a second job just to exist and a huge percentage lack

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even three months of emergency savings.

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It creates a state of perpetual financial precariousness.

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There is no safety buffer.

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So consider the hidden long-term cost to society.

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What happens to a country's innovation, its art, its community fabric, when nearly

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half of its population has absolutely zero mental bandwidth and zero financial

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capital left to take a risk.

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That's a great question.

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Right.

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Who is going to start a small business or invent a new piece of technology or

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invest time in organizing their neighborhood when they are entirely

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consumed by the exhausting math of basic survival.

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It is a profound, incalculable loss of human potential.

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When survival takes 100% of your energy, there is nothing left to build the future.

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We have to stop looking only at the thermometer in the penthouse.

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It's time we realized the ground floor is freezing and the structural integrity

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of the whole building is at risk.

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Thank you so much for joining us on this deep dive.

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Keep asking questions, keep looking past the macro-level cheerleading and keep

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questioning the numbers you see on the news.

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We'll catch you next time.