I. Anti-Union Activities by the Numbers
41.5% - Union election campaigns in which US employers were charged with violating federal law.
29.3% - Union election campaigns in which employers were charged with illegally disciplining workers for supporting a union.
$340m - Amount spent by US employers each year on anti-union consultants.
$8b - Amount lost to wage theft each year by 2.4 million US workers.
4x - How much more likely a noncitizen Latina if to experience minimum wage violations than a white male citizen.
13.2% - How much more a unionized worker earns, on average, than a non-unionized peer.
II. Some Pandemic Facts
$30m - In the first three months of 2020, the combined wealth of North Americans worth dipped 29% -- and then bounced back by August.
$1.3t - The amount by which in the pandemic's first year, the net worth of the 660 richest Americans increased by 44%.
82m - During the first year of the pandemic, the number of people who filed for unemployment benefits, and more than 100k businesses shut down permanently.
1 in 5 - In February 2021, the ratio of renters who were behind on rent, and in 2020, 45m Americans experienced food insecurity -- 10 million more than in 2019.
28% - The percentage by which in 2020, the unemployment rate for people making less than $27,000 tumbled. For those making more than $60,000, it dropped less than 2%.
7.9m - The number of workers earning less than $14 per hour lost their jobs, even though average wages grew by nearly 7% last year.
76% - The percentage of lower-income workers say their work can't be done from home. Only 44% of upper-income workers say the same.
18m - The number of people lifted out of poverty by the CARES Act in April 2020, but 14 million fell back in after its unemployment benefits dried up.
10% - The percentage by which Americans' personal income jumped in January -- almost entirely due to the second round of stimulus.
The Falling Minimum Wage - The real minimum wage was $10 in 1980. It fell to $7.25 in 2020. If it had increased by the same real value as it did for the top 1% of incomes, it would have been about $28 in 2020.
A Tale of Two Tax Cuts - Trump's 2017 tax bill gave the top-earning 0.1% of families a $193,000 tax cut. The March relief bill signed by President Biden gives families with kids making $25,000 or less an average cut of almost $7,700. (Source: Mother Jones, May + June 2021.)
III. Asset Bubble
Share of National Income - Although the share were less than 5% apart in 1980, the bottom 50% share dropped to 10% in 2020, while the top 1% share increased to 20% in 2020.
Share of Household Wealth - The share of the top 1% increased from $5m in 1980 to $20m in 2020. The top 10% went from near zero to about $4m in 2020. The percentage for all increased very slightly from zero in the 40 years. (Source: Mother Jones, May + June 2020.)
IV. Global Problem
Estimated falls in demand for cities' public transit systems in March 2021, compared with prepandemic levels. Stockholm -31%; Toronto -62%; Barcelona -24%; Milan -52%; Hong Kong -9%; Paris -51%; Chicago -49%; San Francisco -67%; Miami -1%. Singapore actually increased by 13%. (Source: TIME, May 24/May 31, 2021.)
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