$3,660?!? That could actually fund my whiskey enema habit!

Allowing Working Americans to Share in Economic Growth Again

There was a time in America when the real income of the average working person grew at a very satisfying rate. We all had good reason to believe that we would be better off than our parents, and that our children would be better off than us.
Thirty years ago, that time ended.

It’s not that our economy no longer grows -- although certainly our economy isn’t as healthy as it was in the 1950s and 1960s. It still does grow, but that growth is no longer shared by the great mass of working people that keep our economy going. It trickles up. The kinds of jobs that used to provide a good living for people who lacked a college education have been going away, moving overseas or being suppressed by cost competition from abroad. Quality manufacturing jobs have been replaced with relatively low-paying jobs as restaurant workers, store clerks, and the like. Families that used to do fine with a single income now need two, and those families spend more money on child-care, commuting expenses, and other costs of maintaining a second earner – all of which leave them with less disposable income than they used to have in the single earner days. Families that seek to raise their children to rise above this downward slide find that college costs continue to grow by leaps and bounds. College graduates send their children and grandchildren to college and graduate school, giving them access to the high-paying jobs in the global knowledge-based economy. But high-school graduates and their children are increasingly frozen out of that opportunity. Even among college graduates, more and more find themselves tied to a form of “productivity growth” commonly known as working more hours (for about the same money), sacrificing time for family and leisure, and being constantly bound to the office by an electronic leash.

The Shared Economic Growth proposal, explained at www.sharedeconomicgrowth.org , would change this trend in two ways. First, by making America the investment location of choice and increasing the efficiency of our economy, it would boost the overall growth of our economy and create more demand for American workers, giving them the power to negotiate for a bigger piece of the growth pie. Second, it would allow our progressive tax system to work the way it is supposed to. Working people saving for their children’s education, for retirement, or for anything else would get to keep up to 54% more of their pre-tax earnings, while people at the top of the earnings scale would be paying tax at the intended rate. This would help to level the playing field, which, in turn, should help ensure that everyone’s children would have a chance to get ahead. We could make the future bright again.

Wouldn’t that be better?

You can help to make this a reality. Visit www.sharedeconomicgrowth.org to see how.