English subtitles for clip: File:Bernie Brief- Income Inequality - Ep. 1.webm

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Hi, this is senator Bernie Sanders. I need your help.

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One of the reasons that our campaign
is doing so well is that

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we are discussing the real issues facing
the American people,

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something that most politicians
and the media just don't do.

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In fact one of the great concerns
I have had for many, many years is that

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the corporate media looks at elections as

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if they were a baseball game in terms
of who's winning or losing, or

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how much money your campaign is raising,
or even a soap opera, you know,

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what kind of dumb things somebody said yesterday
that we can put all over CNN.

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But in my view what this election should be about, 
what our democracy should be about,

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is the debate concerning the enormous 
problems

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facing our people, and, in fact, our entire planet.
And that's what I intend to be focusing on

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throughout this campaign. Now today
I'm gonna be talking about the incredibly important

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issue
of income and wealth inequality

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and I very much would appreciate your help
in getting this video out to your friends

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and to your family.

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The economic reality for most Americans is

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pretty clear:
For the last forty years the American middle class

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has been disappearing and

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more Americans are living in poverty
than at almost any point in our nation's history.

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Today, real median family income is almost
$5,000 dollars less than it was in 1999.

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Today, the typical male worker is making $783
less, last year than he did

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42 years ago after adjusting for inflation.
Your typical female worker is making $1,337

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less than she did in 2007.
Despite the modest gains of the Affordable

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Care Act,
35 million Americans continue to have

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no health insurance, and even more are underinsured.
And today, embarrassingly, the United States

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of America has by far the highest rate childhood
poverty

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of every major industrialized country on Earth.
And while the middle class continues to disappear,

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over the last 2 years, just as an example,
the wealthiest 15 Americans in this country —

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15 people; and that includes Bill Gates, the Koch brothers, Sheldon Adelson, and a bunch of others —,

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These guys have seen their wealth increase
by a hundred and seventy billion dollars.

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That's just an increase in what they previously
had in a two year career.

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To put this in perspective,
the increase in wealth for the top 15

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Americans is more wealth than is owned by
the bottom 40%

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of our people and is double
what this country spends on nutrition programs

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to feed over 40 million Americans.
Meanwhile, since 2005 the typical middle class

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family has seen its wealth go down by more than
36 percent — from $130,000 in 2005

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to just $81,000 today.
We have witnessed an enormous transfer of

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wealth from the middle class and the poor to
multi-millionaires and billionaires.

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Since 1985, the share of our nation's wealth owned by the bottom 90% has plummeted from 36% to just 23%.

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Now, what does this mean? It means that if the bottom 90%, the vast majority of our people,

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had simply maintained the same share of wealth that they had 30 years ago, they would have over $10 trillion

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more today than they in fact do have.

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Now, where did that wealth go? 
Well, about 8 trillion of it has gone

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to a tiny, tiny sliver of the wealthiest people in our country. Over the past 30 years

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the top one-tenth of one percent —
not one percent — one-tenth of one percent,

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has seen its share of our nation's wealth more than double from 10 percent to 22 percent.

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The very, very rich are getting incredibly
richer,

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the middle class is disappearing,
and the poor are getting poorer.

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That is the tragic reality of our economy
today.

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This is the Robin Hood principle in reverse. 
We are taking from the poor and working families

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and seeing that wealth go to a handful of
the richest people in this country.

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That is wrong.
That is unacceptable.

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And that is not what the American economy
should be about.

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The concentration of wealth
at the very top

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is more than bad economics —
it is a immoral

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and it is unsustainable.
Instead of growing an economy

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with good wages where anyone can unlock their
useful potential,

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we are undermining our middle class,
undermining the needs of our kids,

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undermining the heart of our democracy.
Now, if we are serious about reversing income

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and wealth inequality,
what are some of the things

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that we need to do?
First, we have got to make sure that

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anybody in America
who works 40 hours a week

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is not living in poverty.
And that means that over a period of

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a few years we have got to increase the 
minimum wage

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to a living wage of $15 an hour.
Furthermore, we need to make certain

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that we have pay equity for women workers.
It's absurd that women continue to make 78

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cents on the dollar
compared to men.

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Second of all we have to put the American
people back to work, and that means

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a trillion-dollar job program
to rebuild our crumbling infrastructure

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which will result in up to 13 million decent
paying jobs.

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Third, we need a tax system
which is fair.

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And among other things,
we need to put a tax

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on Wall Street speculation
so that every American, regardless

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of income, can go to
college tuition-free.

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Now, as many of you know,
seven years ago the tax payers of this country,

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as a result of the greed and recklessness

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and illegal behavior
on Wall Street, our country, our middle class

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bailed them out. 
Well, now it is Wall Street's

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turn to make sure that they help the middle
class of this country,

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and that all of our people regardless of income
can get to college.

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In my view, a society
in which so many

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have so little, while so few
have so much,

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is not what the United States of America is
supposed to be about.

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If you agree please make sure to share this
video and the facts in this

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video with your friends
and your neighbors,

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but also with your Republican coworkers
and the Republicans that you know.

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To my mind it is a very sad
state of affairs

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that we have too many
working-class Republicans

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who continue to vote
against their own best interests,

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and my hope is that by engaging
in a good honest straight-forward

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dialogue with our Republican friends,
we can win them over

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so they can help us
create a government which works for all of the

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people and not just the Koch brothers and a handful of billionaires.

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So once again, thank you

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very much for listening,
and thanks for your help

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in getting this video out. Take care.