Child poverty in the United States has doubled in the United States, meanwhile America’s 748 billionaires have increased their collective wealth by 2.2 trillion dollars thanks to the way Trump and the Republican Party rigged the tax structure. And it isn’t just billionaires. In 1965, the average CEO made 21 times what his or her workers did. Today, that figure is 344 times more. The Republican Party is actively creating a peasant class, to replace the middle class, who are poorly educated, poorly served by government, and live much shorter lives than people in other democracies. And the real horror is that tens of millions of Americans vote Republican to their own personal detriment.
Los Angeles public school support staff, teachers, and supporters rally outside of the school district headquarters on the first day of a three day strike in Los Angeles, California, on March 21, 2023. Credit: Robyn Beck / AFP / Getty
On the island of Manhattan, where I live, skyscrapers multiply like metal weeds, a vertical invasion of seemingly unstoppable force. For more than a century, they have risen as symbols of wealth and the promise of progress for a city and a nation. In movies and TV shows, those buildings churn with activity, offices full of important people doing work of global significance. The effect is a feeling of economic vitality made real by the sheer scale of the buildings themselves.
In stark contrast to those images of bustling productivity stands an outcropping of tall towers along the southern end of Manhattan’s Central Park. Built in the last 20 years, those ultra-luxury residential complexes make up what is unofficially known as “Billionaires’ Row.” The name is apt, considering that millionaires and billionaires have flocked to those […]
