Tom Cunniff

“At the end of the Cold War, workers received an estimated eleven cents of every dollar they earned for their employer. Thirty years later, they made less than six cents on the dollar. In effect, the personal returns employees received for their labor were cut in half.”
― Alec Ross, The Raging 2020s: Companies, Countries, People—and the Fight for Our Future

“The companies on the original Fortune 500 list earned a combined $8.3 billion in profit in 1955 (approximately $79 billion in 2019 dollars). In 2019, the Fortune 500 came out $1.2 trillion in the black. But instead of raising wages for workers or lowering prices for consumers, modern companies direct more of their gains to shareholders.”
― Alec Ross, The Raging 2020s: Companies, Countries, People—and the Fight for Our Future

“A system that is amoral and imbecilic enough to compel selling Amazon’s stock because it invested in protecting its workers during a pandemic is not one that we should trust to steward the overall health and well-being of our economy.”
― Alec Ross, The Raging 2020s: Companies, Countries, People—and the Fight for Our Future

“To be poor in a rich city brings all kinds of ironies, perhaps none greater than this: The donated clothing is top shelf. Used purple Uggs and Patagonia fleeces cover thinning socks and fraying jeans. A Phil & Teds rain shell, fished from the garbage, protects the baby’s creaky stroller.”
― Andrea Elliott, Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City