The global economy is broken and brutal. This is clearly evident in the United States. Unless you are born into some level of wealth it is extremely difficult to climb into a higher economic class. Economic mobility is determined more by a person’s zip code than merit and hard work. Estimates suggest between 52 and 67 percent of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck with little or no savings. For low-income people working full-time and often multiple jobs there is not enough space in a day to “work harder” to improve their situation. They are literally doing all they can just to meet basic needs. I know this because I’ve lived it.
The official U.S. poverty rate was listed as 10.6% in 2024, representing 35.9 million people. But in reality that number is ridiculous and highly misleading. Federal poverty rates are based on guidelines by the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to determine eligibility for various federal programs. The current official poverty income line is $15,650 per year for a single person and just $32,150 for a family of four which means one must be utterly impoverished to qualify for government benefits. Can any person really make it through a year in the United States with income of $15,651 per year? Can a family of four do so on $32,151?
How much it truly costs to make ends meet varies by state, but estimates suggest the average for a family of four in 2022 was approximately $104,000 annually before taxes. For a single adult with no children, the estimated annual income needed is between $40,415 and $62,233 depending upon the state. Unlike the federal poverty rate the living wage includes the cost of transportation and childcare along with the basic food and housing.
On top of a plague of low wage jobs, another brutality is that the United States is the only industrialized nation without a universal health care system. One result is that a health crisis and medical debt is now the leading cause of bankruptcy. Due to high costs of service uninsured people often put off necessary treatment until the problem becomes so bad they wind up in the emergency room, which is the costliest form of health care. Many suffer chronically poor health due to lack of preventative care. This is only going to get worse as republicans remove subsidies for coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
On the other end of the spectrum, the current form of capitalism has led to a billionaire class that consumes resources at a mind-blowing rate and has taken control of our society through ownership of the internet, social media, corporate media, and elected officials.
A typical campaign for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives costs over $2 million for a first-time position and over $8 million for an incumbent running for reelection. A senate reelection campaign costs over $11 million. Presidential campaigns now run into the billions (yes with a b) of dollars. According to Open Secrets the biggest chunk of campaign money for congressional races for both democrats and republicans is now individual large donors. In 2024, uber-wealthy individuals provided 46.6% of campaign funds for democratic house of representative campaigns, 36.3% for house republican races, 52.4% for senate democrat races, and 41.2% of funding for senate republican campaigns. These numbers dwarf the amounts contributed by combined smaller donors and even political action committees (PACs).* This means a tiny minority of people have massive influence over elected officials and the shaping of policy.
In addition to wielding enormous power over our political and communications systems the US’s super-rich are burning through natural resources and spewing climate change emissions at 4,000 times the speed of the world’s poorest 10%. These billionaires and multimillionaires, who comprise the wealthiest 0.1% of the US population, emit an average of 2.2 tons of CO2 every day, equivalent to the weight of a rhinoceros or an SUV. A study, conducted by Oxfam, found that 308 of the world’s billionaires had a combined CO2 tally that, if they were a country, would make them the 15th most polluting country in the world. The report also found that almost 60% of billionaire investments are in “high climate-impact sectors”, such as mining or oil and gas companies.
Our current capitalist system is structured so that millions of us are overworked and stressed about how we’ll pay for rent or groceries while a tiny, privileged few own private jets, build rockets for amusement, and buy elections. It’s a system that is also stripping our planet of forests, clean water, and wildlife in the name of economic growth (here’s a piece I wrote about this).
The U.S. claims to be the richest country in the history of the world, but the lived reality on the ground for most Americans does not portray a strong or great nation.
I have advocated for economic system change my entire career, now spanning four decades. I’ve promoted the idea of evolving past a system that chews up the planet and keeps people trapped in poverty. I cannot tell you how many times I have been criticized, even belittled for being anti-capitalism. The idea of capitalism as the only acceptable economic system has been deeply baked into American culture. Now, forty years into this work I sense a shift.
Over the past few months several mainstream media programs have started discussing, even tentatively questioning, capitalism. No doubt part of this has been driven by the unexpected success of Zohran Mamdani’s candidacy for mayor of New York. Mamdani is an outspoken Democratic Socialist. His ideas for a more communal and caring economic system have lit a fire, especially in younger voters. I believe Mamdani’s historic landslide victory was a strong statement by those of us who know the entire underlying status quo economic and political systems are failing us.
Recently on two separate occasions I found myself in conversation with Millennials. One was a young dental hygienist. In a moment when the mirrors, scrapers and fingers weren’t in my mouth I asked her how she got into dental hygiene. She explained that she had gone to college to be a journalist but changed direction when she realized how little fact-checking was taking place and how difficult it was to make a good income. She explained that she’d come out of college with significant school loan debt and decided to get into a field that would pay better. She said she was lucky because her partner was Irish and had dual citizenship. College is free in Ireland, and her partner had come out with a degree in engineering and no debt. He immediately got a good-paying job and was helping her with expenses as she paid down her school loans. She noted they were planning not to have children because they didn’t believe they’d be able to afford it.
A few weeks later I was having my car serviced at the Toyota shop. The young rep who was checking me in for my appointment noted that my car was a hybrid. He said, “You know they’re telling us we’ll all be in electric vehicles, but they know people like me will never be able to afford one. Plus, there isn’t enough lithium to make that many EVs. I think the rich people who control everything are trying to set it up so most of won’t be able to drive at all.” A little stunned I said, “Yeah it’s a broken system and a corporatocracy to be sure.” He said, “Yeah, and they don’t care. They’ll trash this planet and then what? Colonize Mars or something?” My heart went out to him when next he said, “I don’t want to wake up every morning in the dark and go out and break rocks.” He gestured to the beautiful Cascade mountains beyond the tall windows in the showroom and said, “I don’t want to live where I’ll never see another Earth sunset.”
This kind of angst, and contraction of dreams is widespread given the harshness of the current economic system which is now structured to make the rich richer and keep everyone else struggling to make ends meet.
As I write, the U.S. government is in partial shutdown with millions of federal employees going without paychecks (even while still going to work) and funds frozen for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) low-income food assistance program. Approximately 42 million Americans rely on SNAP to get enough to eat. Many of these people work low-income jobs. In fact, studies show that 89% of SNAP households with at least one working age, non-disabled adult were in the workforce. Approximately 70% of those worked full-time.
The country is fixated on how to end the congressional budget stand-off and get SNAP benefits moving again to those who need them. But the deeper question should be why do we allow businesses to pay such low wages that even full-time employees need food stamps? SNAP is often framed as a hand-out to the lazy and undeserving, but the truth is SNAP is corporate welfare.
When people working full-time earn so little they qualify for SNAP, Medicaid, and TANF taxpayers are literally giving a handout to corporations. Employers can keep full-time employees on very low wages and no benefits and therefore maximize their own profits. What started out as programs to help the unemployed or disabled people have, in this corporatocracy, turned into billion-dollar subsidies for morbidly rich employers and massive corporations.
In my career in the New Economy movement, I’ve been ridiculed for being anti-capitalist and accused of being socialist. In truth I am neither. I am opposed to the current version of capitalism that chews up people and planet and I do think there are aspects of socialism that are beneficial. In fact, the U.S. is already partially socialist with programs like Social Security and Medicare. However, I don’t think we have yet created an economic system that is suited for our times. Whatever we wind up calling it, I am for an economy that is based on environment and resource restoration rather than extraction and consumption, measures success through the wellbeing of society rather just the size of the GDP and provides genuine opportunity for people to have basic financial security and live meaning-filled lives.
I’m encouraged by the growing frustration among Millennials and so many of the rest of us. I’m encouraged that people like young Zohran Mamdani and old Bernie Sanders (both democratic socialists who challenge the current economic system) are packing stadiums around the country. The frustration is reaching critical mass, and it will drive change. The question is what type, and direction, of change? Within that question tremendous opportunity bubbles, and now we must find the will and the way to alchemize it into a world that works better for all beings.
