Tom Cunniff

“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

“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

“When people scratch their heads and wonder how it can be that the stock market is booming and executive compensation is at an all-time high but the overall economy is less dynamic and workers are not benefiting, look no further than the trillions of dollars in stock buybacks.”
― Alec Ross, The Raging 2020s: Companies, Countries, People—and the Fight for Our Future

“Almost half of New York’s 8.3 million residents are living near or below the poverty line.”
― Andrea Elliott, Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival & Hope in an American City