Between 1945 and 1974, when the American economy grew, wages grew with it — for the factory worker, the teacher, and the executive alike. Then the pattern broke. A 2020 RAND Corporation study calculated that if income for the bottom 90 percent of Americans had kept pace with the economy, they would have earned roughly $47 to $50 trillion more between 1975 and 2018. Updated estimates now exceed $60 trillion.
The $60 Trillion Question traces where that money went and how. It examines the 1981 tax cuts, the PATCO strike and the decline of organized labor, the 1982 rule change that opened the door to stock buybacks, the widening gap between productivity and pay, and what Federal Reserve data show about who owns America today.
This is not a conspiracy story. It is a documented account of identifiable policy decisions — and the case that different decisions could produce different results. The book separates what the data from RAND, the Economic Policy Institute, and the Federal Reserve establish from where interpretation begins, and includes a document guide and full source notes.
Book 1 of Putting America Last: A World Without Friends.