{"id":23644,"date":"2022-09-29T12:28:00","date_gmt":"2022-09-29T19:28:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=23644"},"modified":"2022-09-29T12:28:02","modified_gmt":"2022-09-29T19:28:02","slug":"obscene-says-sanders-after-cbo-reports-richest-1-now-owns-over-1-3-of-us-wealth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2022\/09\/29\/obscene-says-sanders-after-cbo-reports-richest-1-now-owns-over-1-3-of-us-wealth\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;Obscene,&#8217; Says Sanders After CBO Reports Richest 1% Now Owns Over 1\/3 of US Wealth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/banner_image_1x_xl\/public\/2022-08\/GettyImages-1394020293.jpg?h=538ca55a&amp;itok=8Qwu_2M2\" alt=\"Bernie Sanders at a 'Cancel Student Debt' rally\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) joins student debtors at an April 27, 2022 protest outside the White House in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Paul Morigi\/Getty Images for We The 45 Million)<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>&#8220;In the richest country on Earth, the time is long overdue for us to create a government and an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1%.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/article_author\/public\/2021-06\/brett-wilkins-200x200.jpg?h=55541bb6&amp;itok=st0jtEJy\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/author\/brett-wilkins\">BRETT WILKINS<\/a> September 28, 2022 (CommonDreams.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders<\/strong>&nbsp;reacted Wednesday to new government figures showing the wealthiest 1% of Americans now owns over one-third of the country&#8217;s wealth by reasserting calls for systemic reforms to tackle the highest economic inequality of any major developed nation in the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;A society cannot sustain itself when so few have so much while so many have so little.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Tuesday published&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbo.gov\/system\/files\/2022-09\/57598-family-wealth.pdf\"><em>Trends in the Distribution of Family Wealth, 1989 to 2019<\/em><\/a>, a report revealing that while the total real wealth of U.S. families tripled over those 30 years, the growth was dramatically unequal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Families in the top 10% and in the top 1% of the distribution, in particular, saw their share of total wealth rise over the period,&#8221; the report notes. &#8220;In 2019, families in the top 10% of the distribution held 72% of total wealth, and families in the top 1% of the distribution held more than one-third; families in the bottom half of the distribution held only 2% of total wealth.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In a statement, Sanders (I-Vt.)&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/newswire\/2022\/09\/28\/rich-got-richer-while-middle-class-took-more-debt-and-fell-further-behind\">said<\/a>&nbsp;that &#8220;this report confirms what we already know: The very rich are getting much, much richer while the middle class is falling further and further behind, and being forced to take on outrageous levels of debt.&#8221;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;The obscene level of income and wealth inequality in America is a profoundly moral issue that we cannot continue to ignore or sweep under the rug,&#8221; the two-time Democratic presidential candidate argued.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\"><p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Yet our mentions stay filled with people attacking those in that tiny bottom sliver as if they are what&#39;s causing economic strife in the US.<br><br>It is in EVERYONE&#39;S interest for this graph to look very different, very soon. This level of inequality is not sustainable.<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/RaiseTheWage?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">#RaiseTheWage<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/EAz3V4Soxg\">https:\/\/t.co\/EAz3V4Soxg<\/a><\/p>&mdash; Fight For 15 (@fightfor15) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/fightfor15\/status\/1575186568775880704?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">September 28, 2022<\/a><\/blockquote><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The CBO report also highlights the persistent racial wealth gap in the United States. In 2019, white families&#8217; median wealth was 6.5 times that of Black families, 5.5 times that of Hispanic families, and 2.7 times that of Asian and other families.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Additionally, the publication shows that by 2019, student loan debt was the largest component of total debt for families in the bottom 25%\u2014more than their mortgage and credit card debt combined. Among Americans age 35 or younger, 60% of their debt burden was due to student loans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>President Joe Biden last month&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.commondreams.org\/news\/2022\/08\/24\/progressives-say-biden-student-debt-plan-good-start-not-enough\">announced<\/a>&nbsp;a plan to cancel $10,000 to $20,000 in federal student loan debt per borrower, depending upon income, a move that drew both praise and admonition from progressives like Sanders\u2014who advocates canceling all educational debt and making all college tuition-free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;A society cannot sustain itself when so few have so much while so many have so little,&#8221; the democratic socialist asserted. &#8220;In the richest country on Earth, the time is long overdue for us to create a government and an economy that works for all of us, not just the 1%.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) joins student debtors at an April 27, 2022 protest outside the White House in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Paul Morigi\/Getty Images for We The 45 Million) &#8220;In the richest country on Earth, the time is long overdue for us to create a government and an economy that&#8230; <a class=\"continue-reading-link\" href=\"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2022\/09\/29\/obscene-says-sanders-after-cbo-reports-richest-1-now-owns-over-1-3-of-us-wealth\/\"> Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr; <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23644"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23644"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23645,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23644\/revisions\/23645"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}