20% of the Virginia workforce is earning $10.33/hour or less, while wages for the top 20% of earners have soared to $50/hour or more — the top two deciles are earning, on average, 280% more than the bottom two deciles.
Update: Of course, Virginia was a lot more unequal in slavery times, when the poorest people in Virginia were enslaved and had no wealth or wages at all.
Everyone wants their children to do better than they did, yet when wages for most people are stagnant or even falling that becomes more and more difficult. Many of us are proud of the hard work that helped us climb the ladder of opportunity and provide a better life for our families, whether it’s our own work, our parents’, or our grandparents’ But it’s harder to climb that ladder when the rungs keep getting further apart or are actually missing altogether.
Virginia is Exceptionally Unequal [Commonwealth Institute]
(via Naked Capitalism)