This map, by the Business Insider (using information from the Economic Policy Institute), shows the economic inequality in each of the 50 states. It compares the average income of the top 1% to the average income of the other 99%. It shows the top 1% is making from 13.2 times to 45.4 times the average income of everyone else in the United States.
That is why the gap between the richest Americans and the rest of America is so large (larger than at any time since before the Great Depression). And sadly, because the Republicans have used "trickle-down" economic policy to tilt the economic playing field to favor the rich, that gap is still growing wider.
Increases in productivity used to be shared between owners, management, and workers -- but the failed GOP economic policies have resulted in workers being cut out of the benefits from rising productivity. Now owners hog it all, and use bonuses to reward management. Workers get nothing.
Is this fair? Is this the kind of America you want? Isn't this the road to becoming a third-world country -- a nation of "haves" and "have-nots"?
