Steven Greenhouse- The Big Squeeze, Tough times for the American Worker

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3192448-the-big-squeeze

Finished this one last week. Took a while as this is not light reading. 11 years after it came out, you can see how that feeling of the workers being exploited continues to be used by politicians on both the right and the left.

I have held plenty of those tough types of jobs, and have been blessed to move past them and into better circumstances. I recognize fully that I've "won the lottery" in terms of the circumstances into which I was born. Those circumstances enabled educational and work opportunities that many do not enjoy.

As I have prospered financially, I am now in position to vote regularly as a shareholder on executive compensation packages for many companies. As one voice in the wilderness, I have consistently voted against most of those packages in these non-binding votes, unless I am aware that the executives/and or company have particularly enlightened approaches to their own pay or in working with their rank and file employees.

The problems described by Greenhouse are linked to the increasing wealth disparity in the United States. Listened to an interesting NPR Planet Money podcast this week featuring a controversial (to other rich folk) billionaire/many multimillionaire type who has been crusading for wealth taxes to address this inequality before the reckoning that he thinks is otherwise unavoidable as the poor revolt with pitchforks.