to talk about the men behind the women. focus on her life and tell the story from her point of view. the fact that we get to do that, we hope it inspires people to do the same and we know that it does. >> the history chicks. it can also listen to q&a as a podcast. >> next, the senate budget hearing in addressing budget income inequality. witnesses include robert rice. and jennifer bates who was part of an effort to unionize workers at a facility in alabama. this is just under two hours. >> let's get to work. let me begin by thanking ranking

member graham and other members for being with us this morning. some will be with us, some will be virtual. i want to think the witnesses who will be with us remotely because of the pandemic. today, we are going to be discussing an issue that, in my view, is of enormous consequence, both morally and economically. but it is an issue that gets far too little discussion. and that is, the crisis of income and wealth inequality in our country. the simple truth is that today, in america, the very very rich are getting much richer, while tens of millions of working

working-class americans are struggling to put food on the table and take care of their basic needs. this morning we are going to learn why it is that the middle class in our country - once the envy of the world - the whole world looked to the united states and saw a growing and strong middle class. but why it is, that great middle class has been in decline, for decade after decade, after decade, while at the same time, there has been a massive transfer of let wealth from working families to the top 1%, an issue that needs to be discussed. we're going to be talking about why it is, that during this horrific pandemic, 63% of our workers have been living paycheck to paycheck, worried that if somebody in the family gets sick, or the car breaks down, they will be thrown into financial desperation, because they don't have the money to pay those bills. meanwhile, same exact time,

660 billionaires - richest people in america - have become $1.3 trillion dollars richer. so, during the pandemic, millions of people are struggling put food on the table. a handful of billionaires are becoming much richer. we're going to talk about the obscenity of the 50 wealthiest americans now, owning more wealth than the bottom half of our society. 50 people - half of our people, 160 million people. at the same time, over 90 million americans are uninsured, have no health insurance, or are underinsured, can't afford to go to a doctor, when they get sick. is that the america that we want? i don't think so. we'll be asking about how it happens that the top 0.1% now owns more wealth than the bottom 90%? 0.1% more wealth than the bottom

90%. and 2 individuals - bezos and musk - now own more wealth than the bottom 40%. meanwhile, we're looking at more hunger in america than any time in decades. incredibly, if income inequality had remained the same as it was. in 1975, the average worker in america, would be making $42,000 dollars more today than he or she is earning. instead, as the number of billionaires explodes, the average worker in america is now, making $32 dollars a week less than he or she made 48 years ago, after adjusting for inflation. so, you got a huge explosion in technology, worker productivity. average worker today making less in real dollars than they did 48 years ago.

and today we're going to be talking about what it means, morally and economically, when one person in this country - the wealthiest person in the world - jeff bezos has become $77 billion richer during this horrific pandemic, while denying hundreds of thousands of workers who work at amazon, paid sick leave and hazard pay. as you may know, i asked mr. bezos to testify at this hearing. he declined my invitation and that's too bad, because if he was with us this morning i would ask him the following question. and that is, mr. bezos you are worth 182 billion dollars, that's a b, $182 billion you're the wealthiest person in the world. why are you doing everything in your power to stop your workers in bessemer, alabama, from joining a union. so, that they can negotiate for

better wages, better benefits, and better working conditions. while mr. bezos could would not be with us, today to answer those questions we are going to hear from jennifer bates an amazon worker in bessemer, alabama, who will tell us what it's like to work for one of the most profitable corporations in america, and why she and her co-workers are trying to form a union there. let's be clear amazon and jeff bezos are not alone the american people are increasingly disgusted with the corporate greed they are experiencing every single day. they are sick and tired of corporate ceo's who now, make 320 times more than their average employees while at the same time give themselves big bonuses all kinds of golden parachutes and yet they cut back on the health care that their workers have. they want corporations to invest in workers in decent wages

benefits and working conditions, not just higher dividends, stock buybacks, and outrageous compensation packages for their executives. and that is why i am introducing legislation today to impose an income inequality tax on corporations that pay their ceo's over 50 times more than their average workers. it has always been true of course that ceo's make more than their employees but what has been going on in recent years is totally absurd. in 1965, ceo's of large corporations made just 20 times as much as their average workers. today, those ceo's now, make over 300 times - and in some cases over a thousand times - more than their average workers. that is absurd. that is wrong. and that has got to change. now, when we talk about the need to protect the working class in

this country and to address the crisis of income and wealth inequality, there is an enormous amount of work that congress has got to undertake. we need to raise that minimum wage to a living wage. nobody who works 40 hours a week should live in poverty. and that living wage should be at least $15 bucks an hour. we need to make it easier for workers to join unions, not harder. the massive increase in wealth and income inequality today can be directly linked to the decline in union membership. in america, we need to create millions of good-paying jobs, rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure - our roads, bridges, wastewater plants, sewers, culverts, building the affordable housing that our people need we need to transform our energy system away from fossil fuel. and when we fight to protect our kids and this planet from climate change we also create millions of good paying jobs we need to guarantee and do what

every other major country on earth does and that is to guarantee health care to all people as a human right. health care is a human right not health care is a human right not a privilege. , we need to make sure that all of our young people in this country have the right to get a higher education regardless of their their income. and, yes, we need to make sure that the wealthiest people and large corporations stop paying their fair share of taxes. now, i know that my republican colleagues have a different view. i suspect that senator graham will disagree with one or two things that i've said, i may be wrong about that. but at a time of massive income and wealth inequality, i do not believe that we should be giving more tax breaks to the rich. in fact, amazingly enough, maybe we can discuss this. several of my republican colleagues in the senate including majority leader mcconnell introduced a bill to

repeal the estate tax legislation that would provide $1.7 trillion in tax breaks to the billionaire class while doing nothing to helping working families or family farms. let's be clear repealing the estate tax would only benefit the top .1 of one -- 1% who inherit over $11.7 million. 99.9% of the american people would not receive a penny if this legislation became law. so, bottom line is, today we are discussing a huge issue that has broad implications for every person in this country and i look forward to our panelists, presentation and to the discussion. senator graham. mr. chairman. you have been the most consistent voice in the country over a long period of time on issues like this.

we do have disagreement but i like working with people who believe what they believe. now here is some common ground. most of us don't want the consolidation of wealth and power to lie in the hands through ill-gotten gains and monopolies and unfair trade practices and criminal enterprises market manipulation. if you can make your money legally and fairly, good for you. that is the question a big tech. so the question for me is we led to much power consolidate in the hands of being tech a virtual monopoly. and then to allow the new technologies to become the modern version the robber barons of the last century.

i would like to talk more about that at if you need to break them up or not. but generally speaking as a capitalist nation and remain so with regulation to prevent environmental abuse to make sure people play by the rules the government plays a role on people start creating monopolies that is unfair to other competitors when people cheat and scheme and get rich off of bad business practices something we should all be concerned about. but the polling company asking americans what they think the most important problem facing the country every month for a long time. 26 percent said it was the coronavirus. just 1 percent said the gap between rich and poor. how can it be? actually believe that.

most americans and then wondering how to get ahead. one thing we can start focusing on how do you lift up those who present better opportunity in the way to describe either chairman and senator scott who is focused on enterprise opportunity zones and blighted neighborhoods to make sure they are tax advantages for businesses like amazon and others to go into the neighborhood to increase wages to have better business opportunity. that we have good education. if you want to level the playing field for america make sure every kid have adequate

opportunity to be well-educated. what happens when a public school fails time and time again? what are the things we can do to level the playing field? here's what the census bureau said at an all-time low in 2019 and 2017 and 2019 with income inequality declined and the unemployment rate was at a 50 year low and rates for african-americans hispanic and people with disabilities hit the lowest levels on record and the blue-collar workers. there's two different models that were suggested in the model we are suggesting is accumulation of wealth and

then we should all be event line - - against that and what what a lot of people want and then to get the products that you want with online shopping they put brick-and-mortar businesses some of the things i haven't focused on his to make sure sales taxes are collected from online vendors like a brick-and-mortar business like my family had to create a tax advantage. so one level playing field with taxes and educational opportunities. and what is too much money if

the government gets in that business it will do more harm than good looking forward to working with you and many others and quite frankly i enjoy this committee talking about things that matter. we have some great witnesses this morning i think all of them for their willingness to be with us. first we have robert, many of you will remember he is the former labor secretary under president clinton. and the system who begged and how we fix it currently

professor of the policy at university of california berkeley. professor, thank you so much for being with us this morning. >> thank you very much mr. chairman and members of the committee. with your permission, i will simply provide my testimony and submitted to the committee that the committee would think very useful. i will summarize very quickly even before the pandemic america had the widest inequality of wealth we have had in a century wider than any other developed nation the median wage has barely badged for 40 years adjusted for inflation even with the economy of the united states is almost three times larger. and more than half of americans earned so little they have to live paycheck to

paycheck this is something new in the history of at least post-world war ii america. we have never seen the degree of inequality. increasingly the economies gains have gone to the top. the richest one tenth of 1 percent, mr. chairman, what you said, to underscore this has almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent put together. the compensation packages of top executives and ceos have soared from an average of 20 times of the worker 40 years ago or 60 times and i was labor secretary at 320 times today. the pandemic has made all of this much more stark. 660 billionaires in america together one.$3 trillion richer. this would be enough, by the way that they have gained during the past year would be

enough for them to give every american a 3900-dollar check and still be as rich as they were before the pandemic. the american rescue plan just enacted is hopeful in this regard and to look at the underlying structure if there is a huge stiff shift of power and senator graham is right there will be much more emphasis on fighting monopolies both in terms of high-tech companies and monopolies in terms of finance, big pharma, if you see more economic concentration and we have seen anytime in the last 60 years. and that translates into political power.

we have an unbalanced economy fewer than 7 percent of the workers are unions today but 50 years ago giant corporations didn't have the power to suppress prevailing wages or have washington lobbyist which they have today. another very important indication of what is happening is before the 1980s, the main driver of profits and the stock market was economic growth. but research has shown and i included in my testimony , since the late eighties corporations have increased profits and stock prices has been keeping people down. that has hurt the working class. the working class in this country has taken it on the

chin. they need to understand. there is an to market someplace in the atmosphere, in nature. the market is a human creation. as power has shifted dramatically against workers because they don't have unions to represent them, you have a change in the structure of the markets, a dramatic change to rebalance what is necessary of antitrust and substantially higher taxes stronger labor protections to enable workers to join together and gain higher wages and benefits, and also greater restrictions on the use of private and

corporate wealth to influence political decisions. i have much more to say but i just want to say i am eagerly awaiting your questions mr. chairman and members of the committee. >> mr. secretary, thank you very much. our second witness is director of global economy project at the institute of policy studies. ms. anderson has studied income wealth inequality four years and is a well-known expert on compensation. thank you for being with us. >> thank you very much for this opportunity. with the institute for policy studies and for more than 25 years. concentrating on the most dramatic driver the growing gap between co and worker pay. this is a systemic problem and in 1980 the average gap of the

worker pay is 42 / one over the past 20 years the gap averages 350 / one. the growing divide is a driver of gender and racial disparity. nearly 90 percent of fortune 500 ceos are white man while people of color and women are disproportionately large share of low-wage workers. we all pay a price. in 2008 executives had huge bonuses to crash our economy leaving millions without jobs in the wake of that disaster senator mccain and many other lawmakers call for a $400,000 cap on pay and all companies receiving taxpayer assistance. corporations and walk-through banks design compensation

packages to help rebound more quickly than ordinary americans. today there's a greater national suffering when front-line workers have proved how essential they are to our economy and health but yet once again many leaders are focused on bending the rules to protect massive ceo paychecks. at coca-cola the board gave them all bonuses last year the ceo wound up with 18 million of total compensation, over 1600 jobs from the typical pay. you know how carnival stranded the employees on the crew ships for months without pay? meanwhile the board gave the ceo a special retention and incentive award lifted his overall pay to more than $13,000,000.22 percent increase over 201,912,000

front-line workers contracted covid last year but that didn't stop the board and that they met their bonus targets. one of those is company chair see his personal wealth increase 62 percent during the pandemic at two.$4 million. researcher policy institute studies show that the combined wealth of all 668 billionaires one.3 trillion during the pandemic now corporate executives in the direct way of behavior from the 2008 crash many ceos did make working families much more vulnerable to the current crisis too many of the jobs that remained into low-wage part-time work without benefits. we can and must do better as a

nation with a model that creates prosperity for the few for the many. not just bad for workers but business. research shows by having his extreme gaps will lower productivity. in this time of crisis and we have common ground with ceo pay in fact the stanford survey found 53 percent of republican voters actually went to cap ceo pay relative to worker pay. and those that are far more moderate from republican support and with that ceo pay act to increase taxes on corporation with huge gaps for worker pay to create incentive to rain and pay at the top and worker wages with an estimated 150 billion in revenue over ten years.

companies less than 50 / 100 this proposal and then to generate with executive access with a financial transaction tax with a short-term speculation that has inflated wall street executive bonuses while doing nothing for mainstreet. we can also leverage the power by giving corporations away gap in government contracting it has shown us after the financial crescents crashing during the pandemic we cannot rely on them to do the right thing when it comes to ceo pay. we need responsible policy solutions. thank you very much. look forward to your questions. >>. >> the next panelist and amazon worker at the amazon settlement center trying to

form a union at the department store union i invited both ms. bates and chairman mr. bezos a very happy ms. bates agreed to testify unlike mr. bezos. thank you for being with us. >> thank you chairman sanders. ranking members and members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify. paying workers above the minimum wage with those jobs are really like and that they can afford to do much better. working at the amazon warehouse is not easy the shift alone is superfast

you're constantly being watched and monitored. they seem to thank you are a machine. started to work at amazon may of 2020 not too long after they opened. by the third day i was hurting, looked around and it wasn't just me. i mentioned it to my sister who also worked there at the time and she just told me it only gets worse. at amazon you are on your feet all the time and climbing stairs. we only have 30 minute break spread ten hour shift to 30 minute breaks which is not long enough to give you time to rest with the size of a few football fields just the walk to the bathroom and back eats up your personal break time. coworkers and i

are older middle-age people who have to climb up and down the stairs. when i first came to amazon to work there was one elevator. i tried to use it a coworker stopped me and told me we are not allowed to use it. then i noticed there were elevators around the facility but it was materials only. i can this beautiful facility was so many elevators that the work itself you have to keep up with the pace that feels like a nine-hour intense workout everyday and then inspect our every move you can be charge with time not being on task i learned if i were to slow like be disciplined or even fired. it was too much for my sister and she ended up quitting. i thought there should be another way.

why can't large and while the company do better for their workers? amazon has made tons of money during the pandemic the richest man in the world then they expect is not to expect anything we didn't have before we started working do not deserve better amazon claims they went to help that economic growth and to pay a living wage and chile met for the cost of living working and in healthy conditions because we are not robots we deserve to live and laugh and love. we are the workers deserve to be treated with dignity and respect to be given the same commitment that we give to the

job every day we go home. it feels like are given only 30 percent. he was looking out for us. and i have to say we're the billionaires we don't get to spend any of it. we first are to talk about unionizing on one break and said they wouldn't do these things to us. people were upset about brakes being too short not having enough time for rest are being humiliated to go through random security checks going to the break to make sure we are not stealing merchandise

and then they don't even give us the time back for breaks. and then other times that even speak to a manager just get a message by an app or a text. sometimes is plain weird and then talk about job security. people were fired for no real reason and not being given the opportunity to speak to amazon about it. they claim we should be happy with what we have and they spend millions to tell us we don't need a union person is amazon found out they started to go hard to stop us we were forced into union education meetings. we had no choice but to attend them out given the opportunity to decline. they would last for an hour sometimes we have to go several times a week. it was different reasons and we had to listen to someone spoke up and disagreed they would shut the meeting down

and then follow up with us and a lot of what they said in that meeting was not true. and if they joined a union to get confused with what was said in the meeting. in the workplace was off-limits. despite all that or because of it to organize and build support. we will hope we hope you have a level playing field we hope it could rest more and then to

take some of the stress off of our bodies we hope we get a living wage not just amazon minimum wage and then to provide better for our families. we hope they will start to hear us and csn treatise like human beings. it is frustrating all we want is to make amazon a better place to work yet amazon is acting like maybe they spent less time and money trying to stop a union they would hear what we are saying. and maybe they would create a company that is as good for workers in our community as it is for shareholders and executives. thank you for giving me the time to share my story. >> thank you ms. bates very much. the next witness is president and ceo of economic innovation group.

prior to his work there he was the vice president of public policy and government affairs for leading business association the organization for international investment. thank you for being with us. >> thank you chairman sanders and ranking member graham and members of the committee great appreciate the privilege of testifying on inequality in the united states. there's many ways for congress to work in a bipartisan basis to a tackle inequality and with disadvantage people. several such areas american testimony including promoting dynamism pursuing an aggressive policy to boost wages and labor participation with an agenda to support distressed communities. and interest of time to focus my opening comments to help low and moderate income

americans build healthy long-term retirement savings. the us economy is most engine mouth but the lack of wealth is startling. the median net worth for the bottom 25 percent is $310. 50 percent of families have less than 2 percent of total wealth. on this central reasons for persistent lack of wealth is lack of retirement savings. that is the bottom 50 percent of american families is zero dollars the median for the top 10 percent is $810,000. the problem is that americans are not doing well of saving that the current poly so poorly designed for those to build wealth. retirement savings policy with deductions from taxable income at the bottom 50 percent of the income distribution as

well as result summer making $20000 gets nothing from federal and state taxes someone making 200,000 get 7000 and federal state aid. those who need help the most excluded by current policy. and that participation retirement savings perpetuates the racial wealth gap only 35 percent of hispanic families and 41 percent of black families hold any retirement accounts savings compared to 60 percent of white families. those that do have some retirement savings the white is the double than the black family. i can be done? and with the elegant and transforming them and went to be transformative to every member of congress to make all low and moderate income workers eligible for program modeled after the federal

savings plan. with contributions up to percentage of income. and in a paper and with the white house council of economic advisers make a case for expanding to tens of millions americans in employer-sponsored plan but they argue the design makes an ideal model for low and moderate income workers then to be passed on to future generations it is a well-designed program they enjoy the automatic enrollment an easy user interface with a 5 percent of income with those when combined have remarkably strong participation among workers.

it is a studied model that performs exceedingly well of traditionally marginalized workers from us retirement policy. the rates of high school degree or less in the bottom one third reach as high as 95 percent. workers on average contribute a significant share of their earnings to their kids accounts. and doherty provides compelling evidence they would avidly actively participate if made available to them creating such pathway through a widely available program modeled on tsp would be a chance for me to step to ensure everyone in this country has an equal state of national economic growth and prosperity. and with the current policy of tens of millions of workers including part-time and gig workers. early estimate suggests the social and economic benefits could be achieved at relatively little cost was

subsequent analysis would demonstrate. wealth and well-being is a worthy policy goal. i believe this is one of the most important. i look forward to taking your question. >> the last witnesses director poverty study on the studies aei serving as executive director of the joint economic committee thank you for being with us. >> thank you mr. chairman. chairman, ranking member and members of the committee thank you for appearing today policymakers confront those challenges facing the nation to the extent to command the highest levels of attention based on wealth and the

quality the conventional wisdom has risen dramatically and turns out to have suffered and even if it has risen over the same period that have significantly with all-time highs and it has fallen sharply 20 years ago this september the first estimates of income concentration in the united states were published as i say my written testimony there were important files. that these in indicate the top 1 percent was 14 percentage point between 1979 and improved estimates and the likely increase not taking into account and ignore the

way policy and after taxes and trade with the top 1 percent share goes from seven.2 percent in 19798.7 percent income measurements has improved that the perception of a crisis stems from the statistics the wealth concentration has also been influential calling for taxation. . . . . 0.1% around 9o

14% in 2016. but after adding the value of the increase with only 8% to 10% even if income or wealth concentration had risen more sharply at what it would matter. the fact of the matter that income below had risen significantly the congressional budget office finds the household income rose between 32 to 41% for 1979 to 2017. in increase was 54 to 61% after. according to the official measure of the poverty rate was

lower than ever before among all american families, families headed by a single woman, non-hispanic whites, blacks, hispanics and asians. as i discussed in my written testimony, zero official statistics had a way that understate the progress reducing poverty. poverty among the children of single mothers jumped in 1982 to 18% in 2014 and is lower today. before closing i want to redirect your attention to the two issues. first the problem of limited upward mobility out of poverty. even as we have proven it hasn't resulted in a greater chance the children raised in low income families will make it to the middle class. the progress with upward mobility is even more worrisome because it prevents us from narrowing that disparity end mobility between black and white children. a second crisis involves the

deterioration of the association relative to 40 or 50 years ago, americans married less often with family members doing fewer things together with their neighbors, attending religious services, fewer groups and spending time with coworkers out of the workplace. residential segregation worsened. single parents were increased. since these problems predate the increase and had occurred as the poverty rates had fallen, addressing them as likely required that would be considered if the goal to reduce inequality. indeed many policies that would reduce inequality were short-term poverty might be counterproductive in terms of increasing upward mobility or the declines. policymakers should take care of labeling the challenge. people of course will see how serious an issue is but a crisis that is declared on the basis of the data and questionable claims

about why the data is important from the risk of crowding out more pressing national problems. it's difficult to identify solutions to the problems but we cannot let ourselves be led astray in prioritizing them. thank you very much. >> thank you for your testimony. now we are going to begin the questions. let me begin my questioning with the former secretary of labor. mr. secretary, according to your testimony, 50 years ago, general motors was the largest employer in america with a typical work belonging to the union it made $35 an hour after adjusting for inflation. today america's largest employer is walmart where over half the workforce makes less than $15 an hour and none of the workers belong to a union.

how has the decline in the union membership contributed to the increase in income inequality? >> mr. chairman, one of the most dramatic changes in the united states over the past 60 years has been the decline in the percentage of private sector workers that are unionized. sixty years ago in fact even 50 years ago, one third of all private sector workers belong to a union. that gave them bargaining power at the front level and it gave them a voice at the level and political power because when you consider a third of all workers unionized, the unionized segment of the workforce had a political voice. today by contrast to 50 years ago, only 6.4% of private sector workers are unionized which means that the level there's there isalmost no union presenct

firms, at the level of national politics, the union voice is far less. the working-class voices far less and so in both respects in both levels, you get a severe imbalance. in the 1950s, we talked about the countervailing power represented by american labor unions, to the great powers of american corporations. countervailing power is now gone. there's almost no countervailing power left. so it is and that the worker was that much more brilliant or productive or the gm worker was so much better prepared than the walmart worker. the difference was the gm worker had a union behind him or her and walmart worker does not. >> i will have to interrupt you and i apologize but i want to ask some of the other panelists a question. let me go to jennifer.

let me ask you a very simple question. why do you believe it is so important for you and your coworkers to have a union at the amazon facility in alabama. why is that so important? >> it's important because we need and even playing field. people have been walking away from jobs because of the disrespect and inequality and nobody has actually stood up to say you know what, it's time for someone to be held accountable for what they are doing. amazon has decided if you see something say something. so we decided to stand up and say something. we need a better working conditions, we need better wages for living. we need job security, so it is

important for us the you union come in so that amazon will have the opportunity then to sit down and talk to us and with us to get these issues resolved. >> thank you very, very much. let me ask ms. anderson a question. according to your testimony, in 1980, ceos of large corporations made about 42 times more than the average worker. today they make over 300 times more than their average worker. very briefly, how did that happen? >> it didn't happen because ceos just got a lot smarter during that time period. on the worker and it happened because we've stagnated as the unions have declined as we have already discussed. it's happened because they've come to dominate the ceo pay packages and the argument was that the shifting and sure the

pay-for-performance and that has turned into a joke. study after study shows there is no connection between the pay levels and their performance. one of the most obvious examples after the 2008 financial crash when companies gave boatloads of stock options either executives when the market was at the bottom and very quickly the stock options ballooned in value as a result of the taxpayers recovery not because of an executive performance. >> thank you very much. my time is expired. senator graham. >> thank you mr. chairman. i want to start with secretary rice. can you hear me? >> i can hear you perfectly sign. >> what should the top individual tax rate to be in

your view? >> under president eisenhower, dwight eisenhower you may recall the top rate -- it was 91% in the top effective rate was 43%. i don't think that we need to go back to the eisenhower years. he was a great president in many respects but i think that we do need to substantially increase the top rate from what it is today. >> just generally speaking what would that look like? you don't have to give an exact number. >> i would say in the range of 40 to 50%. >> what should the corporate tax rate be? >> are you asking me again, senator? >> i would say that the

corporate rate probably ought to be and again we are talking about income taxes, corporate income taxes i think the top corporate income tax rate ought to be around 30%, maybe 35% of where it was before, but the question with corporate taxes is always interesting because the question is who ultimately pays. i'm one of the people who thinks maybe we ought to reduce the corporate income tax and increase capital gains taxes because it is the shareholders who should bear the most of the burden of the corporate income tax. >> what should the capital gains rate to be? >> i think the capital gains rate should be between around 25 or 28%. warren buffett things there ought to be a minimum income tax that would be including capital

gains. i think he may be right. >> okay. do you support school choice for neighborhoods who have poor performing public schools? >> again if you're asking me, senator, i support school choice in the sense that i think that poor performing schools do need to be held accountable. the question is what the choice is. i think that any organization whether it is a charter school or public school ought to be in the position of offering a good education, and i've offered a proposal years ago. nobody supported it except governor bush who liked this idea which was a voucher that would be universally related to family income. >> that's very helpful. thank you.

>> do you support school choice for the poor performing schools for parents to have a choice? >> senator graham, it's an important question but it falls outside of the scope of my organization's work. i'm happy to offer my personal opinion but i want to make it clear it isn't an issue that we've studied. >> that's okay. about the tax rate i just talked about, what is your view on the tax rate? >> the question of where they should be set is a complicated one because it depends what other aspects are a factor. i think what we know about the corporate tax rate for example is -- >> would you support a flat tax? >> no. >> do you support tax reform to eliminate the deductions and exemptions?

>> yes because as a general matter the progressive tax code is good and so the answer is yes. >> my point is if you wanted to improve the life of the average american worker, at what point does regulation and taxation in business trickle-down to the inability to get good paying jobs in a growing economy, how much does tax and regulation impact the american economy and the ability of people to participate at a higher level? >> one of the things that is often misunderstood as the complexity as a subsidy to the larger incumbent stakeholders so the more complex the economy is, the more complex the regulatory system for the tax code the more likely it is to be gained by those at the top and the more likely to disadvantage those at the bottom. so, as the policymakers think about these questions which are

important, i think the implicit entry created by complexity is something with that we should keep in mind because it is something that plays into the theme of the robust competition and holding larger stakeholders. >> one last question. do you worry that if the tax rates are out of line on the corporate side with the rest of the world that will incentivize american companies may be to leave? >> i think certainly that tax rates can be a disincentive. it's not the only factor they consider when looking at the positions. trade plays a large role but certainly if the u.s. were to get way out of, i think that would be a huge problem. >> thank you. senator whitehouse. >> thank you, chairman. my questions are for mr. reisch. first of all, thank you for your

testimony. you document unprecedented income inequality in the country basically since the gilded age, which on its own is a problem. but the question i want to raise with you is what do the new age robber barons do with that 1% are billionaires? we know some of them start big famous foundations and they do charitable work, and good for them, but some of them set up faux foundations and fund fake think tanks and go to work in politics from hiding. many of them are billionaires who made billions in the fossil fuel industry and the operation that they run the billions can best be compared in my view to hostile covert operations like

intelligence services. so, the question is what happens when income inequality at virtually unprecedented levels spawns political inequality? what happens when you have a quiet believe ruling political class hiding behind dark money outlets to control political parties, to control public debates, to control elections through sponsored think tanks through captive paid for media outlets and through dark money funded super pacs and independent expenditure political operations? can you comment on the line and tv advertising but wait there's more, can you comment on the wait there's more of the political inequality that the political hidden youth of all of this massive fortune that they have aggregated has brought to bear?

>> yes, senator and this is one of the most important negative consequences of why the degree we have today that is people at the top of the huge amounts of assets can and do use a lot of that money to influence political decisions not only at the federal level but also at the state and local level that increases their wealth. it's a vicious cycle. we see for example amazon in seattle has spent a great deal of money on the city council elections. council elections. amazon around the country is large enough than can have an option that extorts money from states and cities around the country or where the second headquarters are going to be.

the whole roll of money and our system and the overwhelming dominance of money from big corporations as well as very wealthy individuals polluting american politics is one of the worst aspects of inequality and as the great louis brandeis, the justice once said we have a choice in this country. we can either have a great deal of money in the hands of a few people or we can have a democracy, but we cannot have both. >> so, what happens to citizenship and to the citizenry when a citizen can't tell who the actor is on the political stage, when the ad doesn't say i am exxon and i approve this message, i'm coke industries and

i approve this message but instead it says behind a phony front group americans for peace and puppies and prosperity approve this message and you go and look up americans for peace and peace and prosperity and it is a drop. what is the citizen left with? >> the citizen is left with no ability to sift through the messages that the citizen receives as to the veracity and reliability. >> motive sometimes matters, doesn't it, and if you hide the identity you also hide the motive and the ability as a citizen to evaluate the motive and therefore the veracity. >> indeed. and the supreme court has repeatedly said as recently as in citizens united, as you know, that transparency will cure all of the negative aspects of great wealth and corporate wealth in our political system but that

hasn't happened. we don't have the transparency. congress hasn't demanded it and a lot of dark money and dark money groups have 501 c4 groups making it possible for the citizens to know who is actually providing what messages. and i will point out a great number are in the supreme court right now trying to undo that transparency part of the supreme court citizens united holding thank you, secretary and mr. chairman. >> thank you mr. chair man and for holding this hearing. the title of which is the income and wealth inequality crisis in america. i think we ought to start with asking ourselves is this really a crisis, is that how we should think about especially the most recent trends in income and wealth inequality. i want to start with a chart that's been provided to us.

he refers to as the wage and salary income that has dropped as a percentage of. you could argue that it goes back further but it looks like it's declining. what is really interesting is he chose not to provide all of the data that is available. he cuts off the data in 2018. the data for 2019 and 2020 are available and so let's take a look at what the picture looks like if you include all of the available data, if you include all of the available data, what you notice is it's the same graph except we have a very significant uptick. in fact it's an upward trend from 2011, clearly an upward

trend. in fact, in 2018 and 2019, the upward trend -- mind you we are talking about wages and salaries as a percentage of the total economy, the upward trend that has been underway for ten years now was accelerating in 2018, 2019, further in 2020. so, should we consider that we are in a crisis of income inequality when the situation has been trending better for ten years and most recently at an accelerating pace. we have recaptured that from where we were in 2003. i think when you've got more available, you really ought to use it. let's take a look at another chart that we have here. this is from the atlanta and it compares wage growth for the lowest 25% of the wage earners to the wage growth from the

highest 25% of earners. now, the lowest 25% is in blue and the highest 25% is in this gold color. what does the chart to show? show? it shows sometime around 2014, the wages started growing more rapidly for low income workers and the wages had been growing for high income workers and what does that mean? that means the income gap is getting narrower. if the higher income people's raises are occurring at a lower pace than the low raises then the income differential is narrowing and that is what is happening and once again, not only is that happening, but it's happening at an accelerated pace because you see the gap by which low income earners are outperforming high income earners in terms of their wage

growth. that gap has. so the acceleration at the rate in which lower income earners are gaining ground relative to high income workers when that's happening and accelerating, should we think of that as a crisis? the reason i'm concerned, let's go to one more chart. we've got another one provided by the st. louis fed and it's from the u.s. bureau of labor statistics. this is a depiction of the average hourly earnings of production and nonsupervisory employees. so, these are not managers, they are not executives. and what's happening is wages have been rising and prior to 2015, not at a very spectacular place that's for sure, but it's certainly been accelerating to the point where in the recent years, these wage gains have been well above the rate of inflation.

so, my point is this is very good news. i know some would like to suggest that we have a crisis so as to justify various socialist policies and even more redistribution of wealth, but the fact is the income gap has been narrowing at an accelerating pace. a quick word about the wealth gap. one of the ironies of this is a big source of the increase in the wealth gap has been the inflated value of the financial assets. why have the financial assets gone up so much in value? a big part of it i think is ultra easy money by the federal reserve. our democratic colleagues have long been huge advocates of the ultra easy money by the federal reserve. you should be careful what you wish for because this is one of the consequences but even here there is good news and the good news is that while investing in financial assets used to be the domain of just the wealthy, that

is increasingly becoming an activity of middle income and even people of modest means and in 1989 fewer than one third of american households own stocks and in 2019 a majority almost 53% of american households own stocks. this is going to help narrow the gap and i see that i've consumed my time. thank you for indulging me mr. chairman. >> senator van holland should be with us on video. >> thank you mr. chairman and ranking members and all the witnesses for your testimony. we have seen another explosion in terms of the gaps between the ceo compensation and the compensation that they provide to their workers that's why i joined senators sanders and introducing the bill but i would

like to start with you with the danger of using sort of economic average measures to measure how the overall economy is performing or for working people, so for example if jeff moved to baltimore city last year, you would have seen a tripling of the per capita income in baltimore city. the current per capita income is roughly $53,000. jeff moved there last year more than triple, that is roughly $175,000 per person and of course the situation of any individual in baltimore city would not have changed at all and so looking from the outside of the average is, you would say

what's going on in baltimore city, a huge increase. can you talk about why we need to be drilling down on different economic measures to gauge the success of the policies for most americans? >> i look at the measures that simply look at the average as you get more and more unequal it doesn't tell you what you need to know about what is happening at the bottom half. the biggest story over the last

50 years has been the fact that the bottom half what we used to call the middle-class and working-class their situation have become so similar and the insecurities and the degree to which they are living paycheck to paycheck have become central to our political economy. ..

i think one reason we find so many people who are poor and working-class are so angry is -- it is justifiable -- they are working harder and they get less and less. economic mobility, the ability to move upward, is becoming harder and harder for the bottom half. logically, because as the ladder becomes longer and longer, you get fewer and fewer rungs of the ladder. you are correct, we need to look at median and below, not average, to get real insight into what is happening to the american workforce. sen. van hollen: i appreciate that and i hope we will do that because we cannot just throw around numbers about aggregate gdp growth. those disguise what is happening to so many working americans. of course, we have seen the drop in real wages since the late

1970's coincide with many factors, including globalization, but certainly a big one is the drop in union membership and activity. that is what the proact is designed to address. if i could let jennifer bates tell us -- first of all, thank you for what you and your coworkers are doing. what difference would a union make to you at amazon? ms. bates: we already come to work with commitment. we would come to work understanding that things are being fair with us. we are able to sit down and negotiate better working conditions to get issues resolved in the facility, it would allow us to come to work and not worry about getting fired for something you had no idea you had done. it helps us to be put in a position where we are able to negotiate a living wage and not just a minimum wage. yesterday, one of my coworkers tried to apply for an apartment and they told her she did not make enough. you have to make at least $39,000 average to afford an apartment.

it would open eyes not just in alabama, but all over, that the corporations should pay attention to the working-class people living paycheck-to-paycheck, trying to get not just to pay the rent or mortgage, but we have to live. put food on the table. i think the union coming to amazon would open the door to a lot of things. t to pay the rent or mortgage but we also have to live. and that opens the door to a lot of things. >> thank you mr. chairman it was chairman sanders was here because they wanted to second what lindsay was talking about. these are very interesting and important there are areas of

potential agreement here and a big is the accumulation of wealth but the accumulation of power. i think lindsay was referring to that. we went to eastern europe and senator white house was at the conference when you go to eastern europe they always talk about the corruption of the media oligarchs. we have something similar here as well. you can measure the income disparity but asset disparity. but here is one way to look at income disparity. did for the cameras. this is simply the five quintile's the income earners

broke up just looking income it is 26 times difference between the lowest quintile and the upper quintile. but it completely changes when you take away taxes from the upper quintile and add benefits. that is only a three times differential. we can all talk about statistics and use them to support the arguments and we do recognize it. and we have to diagnose what caused it. senator kane is back and i talked with him with a republican tax plan. we did need to make the system more competitive but at the time i was promoting something i thought would be a better approach of tax simplification and tax rationalization. to me income is income with the fact so many different types we just arbitrarily assigned different tax rates

distorts economic activity. and to create so many incentives for the c corporation so they don't flow out to the shareholders and then to reallocate into the economy. with a true warren buffett tax. but when i do that 100 percent of corporations tax all corporate income at the individual rates. working out the complications it is quite easy to do. i know it is a departure but i would love to work with my colleagues across the aisle and my republican colleagues

to rationalize the tax system. one of the things i proposed is the true warren buffett tax. 95% of companies are pass-through entities, and why not do it at 100%? tax all income at the individual level at individual rates? income is income. we have worked out the complications and it is actually quite easy to do. i know it is a departure but i would love to work with my colleagues across the aisle and my republican colleagues as well to rationalize and simplify our tax system. capital gains, the reason we have a lower capital gains rate makes some sense because you don't want to tax inflationary gains. a better way of doing this is call income income, tax at the same rate, remove the inflationary gains. i don't like social or economic engineering to the tax. we need to simplify it and rationalize it. i want to ask mr. winship -- no, let's go to professor reich first. do you disagree with this chart where i am showing income and benefits, when you add in income taxes and add benefits, which by the way, according to phil gramm, $45,000 in benefits to the lowest income in 2020 alone. the lowest income went up 5.5%. our economy is going to take off with all of the pent up demand. do you dispute this? . income went up five.5 percent. total savings one.$6 trillion. the economy will take off with

the pent-up demand. >> and out of the wan you add intent taxes and transfers inequality of income is far less dramatic and that is an argument i assume four more taxes and transfers. but the wealth inequality one of the biggest problems we have in this country in mr. reich: no, i think undoubtedly, when you add in taxes and transfers, inequality of income becomes far less dramatic and that is an argument i assume for more taxes and more transfers. also let me stress that wealth inequality is not really touched by that. one of the biggest problems we have in this country in terms of everything from political influence to the distortions that occur when great wealth is transferred from family to family, generation to generation, has to do with wealth inequality and not only income inequality. sen. whitehouse: thank you. it is senator kaine's time now. sen. kaine: i have a chart with me i hope my visible behind me

depending on camera angle. it is not right now. thank you for that. this chart is an interesting chart because i think it shows the different values of the two parties right now, but it also shows potentially a different economic philosophy where we can operate a real-time experiment on. this takes a look at the way the trump tax cut was allocated and the benefits of how the american rescue plan passed in february by democrats were allocated among the american public. if you look at the chart, what you see is a couple of things. the quintile of the american public that most benefited by the trump tax cut was the top quintile, and by the american rescue plan was the lowest quintile.

more than 65% of the benefit of the american rescue plan went to the bottom three quintiles. the democratic recovery plan was relatively even in distribution and benefits across the first four quintiles of american income, where as you see a dramatic unweighting in the republican tax cut and jobs act. given the republican tax plan was passed with unanimous republican support and no democratic support and the american rescue plan was passed with unanimous democratic support and no republican support, i think these two plans are an interesting window into the values of the two parties.

the price tags of both are essentially the same. i think this is a great chart and the coincidence of which bars are read and which are blue is not a coincidence, but it is good to show the philosophies between the parties as to how you want to allocate benefits if the government does something like this that is supposed to be a stimulus in nature. the democratic proposal is to spread more evenly with a little more focus on the lower earning americans and the republican philosophy is straight benefits to the top. in addition to expressing the values of the parties, i also think we are going to set up an interesting two-year study of what the effect of this legislation is on the american economy. the republican tax cut was done in december 2017, and you could run a two-year experiment until december 2019. you don't want to get too much

into 2020 because of covid. you run a two-year study and then you run a two-year study on the american rescue plan, through 2023. what you do, and i would encourage my academic friends to do this, look at every economic data point you think is significant. poverty rates, income, stock market, business startup activity, gdp, wealth inequality, deficit -- you pick the economic measure and for the tax cut and jobs act, you start in december 2017 and you look at how it affected the economy for two years, and for the american rescue plan, you start in february 2021 and look at how it affected the economy in the next two years. i think you will see not only what the values of the parties are, you will also see which can make philosophy produces more good for americans. that is a working hypothesis i

would put on the table to our experts and i would love anyone on the panel to address whether my hypothesis might be worthy of study. ms. anderson: i will jump in. i appreciate your calls for more analysis on the impact of inequality and the range of income levels. i would perhaps suggest an additional indicator to look at. no one today has mentioned the federal reserve found that 40% of americans could not afford a $400 emergency, meaning they were one medical problem or car breakdown from financial ruin. i think that's one of the most powerful indicators that gets it how it is not just about wages, it is about the cost of living, and for so many americans, the cost of health care skyrocketed.

that is a concrete way of looking at how it affects people's levels of economic security at a time when we have a growing number of billionaires at the top. sen. kaine: i would love to hear answers from other witnesses for the record. sen. whitehouse: we are waiting for senator braun who was on the way, so why don't we have senator johnson ask a question, have senator kaine ask a question, and -- here is senator braun, coming in in the nick of time. i will recognize senator braun, if you want to take a moment to get squared away. ok, very good. chairman sanders is back from the vote, so he can resume the gavel.

sen. sanders: senator braun. sen. braun: thank you. listening to the opening remarks, i have to say when it comes to what happens with minimum wage, what happens with income inequality, i think both are valid issues. when it comes to how you tackle it, the difference between main street usa, small businesses, family-owned, even midsized businesses, it is a lot different than, in my opinion, public corporations where you have a different dynamic in play. when you look at income

inequality, you have to be careful because the opposite of that ends up where you have the central government too overbearing, and that has not worked anywhere it has occurred. if you look at the pickle we are in currently, i think a lot has to do with many of the major sectors of our economy. i cite health care, for instance. it has no transparency, no competition, barriers to entry, and does not have an engaged consumer. the hallmark of what makes markets work. i think when you hear discussions of amazon is paying $15 per hour, to me, for a huge corporation that has the wherewithal, it probably should be more than that. when you look at wages across the country, i think something

needs to be done with the minimum wage, you need to look at it from original point of view. you don't want to disrupt places like indiana, where it is working, because you have a great business climate. you've also got a low cost of living. if you do anything with minimum wage, it should be done where you regionalize it. places like new york and san francisco and seattle should probably be above $20 per hour because the cost of living is so high. when you go to the extreme of what has been talked about here, i think you end up maybe hurting in the long run if you try to bring the federal government in to moderate the situation. other than maybe making sure markets are free and unfettered and competitive. sadly, when you look at many of the places where public companies and corporations rule, you do not have that.

the other thing is, when you look at the structural deficits we run in this country of close to $1 trillion per year, my first question, if he is still on, will be for mr. reich -- how do you, without upsetting an economy that i felt was working fairly decently, you were raising wages the old-fashioned way pre-covid -- how do you bridge the structural deficit when it is mostly associated with programs like social security, medicare, advocate that we need but are not self-sustaining? i would love your explanation -- can you raise revenues in any way that will not upset the economy that to me, there is a sweet spot, and corporate rates, when they were moved to 21%, corporate tax rates were 18% largely because of the exceptions in the code.

main street employers actually got a tax break that was driving the economy when you got the qualified income reduction and took that rate to 29.6%. i would love to hear your comments on what your idea is on revenue without upsetting the economy. mr. reich: senator, we have learned the deficit and overall federal debt is less of a threat than we thought it was as recently as 20 years ago in terms of inflation. and inflationary expectations. at some point, we do need to raise revenue. the question obviously becomes where and how and who is going to pay? the subject of these hearings is widening inequality of income

and wealth, and it would seem to me that if we are looking for places to raise revenue, assuming we have come to the point where we say given the needs of this country, we have to raise revenue, the place to look is certainly at the top. i think the proposals for a wealth tax merits a great deal of attention. other countries have a wealth tax, we have property taxes at the local level, a form of wealth tax. it seems to me, given the extraordinary wealth in the hands of certain people in this country, a wealth tax is appropriate. we also need to get rid of the loopholes. the loopholes we have been talking about for years, like the carried interest loophole. there is no reason for it. there are many other loopholes as well that have been put into the tax code because there are companies and industries that

are hiring lobbyists that have really spent all of their time looking for ways of creating methods to reduce tax liability. let's get rid of those loopholes and make sure the base is as wide as possible. sen. braun: do i have time for a follow-up? sen. sanders: you are over time, but if it is very brief. sen. braun: a quick follow-up question, where does spending fit into the formula when we have had record revenues of recent years and how much of a deficit are you willing to tolerate under the maybe new modern monetary theory? mr. reich: senator, we don't know all that much, quite frankly, as to modern monetary theory. it is a fairly new idea. the mainstream notion -- and i think we don't want to take too many risks.

i think at some point, the deficit, deficit financing and total federal debt could ignite inflationary expectations. that's why we have to get serious about raising revenue. the easiest place to raise revenue, as i said, is from people who are very wealthy. it has the least dampening effect on the economy. right now, when there is so much underutilized capacity in terms of 9.5 million americans who have lost their jobs, 4 million americans who have dropped out of the wage labor force altogether, something on the order of 15 million americans working part-time when they would rather be working full-time, given this underutilized capacity, right now we need to spend in order to stimulate the economy. i don't think there is any question about that and there was a great deal of consensus about that with regard to the

mainstream. sen. braun: thank you. sen. sanders: thank you. i believe this is our last questioner. sen. lujan: thank you mr. chairman, and ranking member graham. i look forward and having a conversation about the importance of unions to our democracy, republic and working americans. my family raised me to understand our communities are stronger when workers are protected and empowered. my grandfather was a union carpenter, my father was a union ironworker, my mom worked with the local public school district and my brother is with idw. ,my nephew was just accepted into their apprenticeship program. i believe everyone in american should have the same opportunity that they have to build economic security and pass something

better onto their children and grandchildren. those are the values i grew up learning and that i continue to fight for today. the testimony we heard today from our witnesses include a number of striking statistics. that is where my questions will begin. mr. lettieri, how much wealth to -- does the bottom 50% of americans own? mr. lettieri: 2%. >> and what is the pay gap? >> 300 to one. sen. lujan: mr. reich, how much value has the minimum wage lost to inflation since it was last raised? mr. reich: about 10%. sen. lujan: how much has union membership fallen over the last half-century? mr. reich: from 32% of private-sector workers down to 6.4% of private-sector workers today. sen. lujan: down about 33% since 1950? mr. reich: roughly.

sen. lujan: would you agree statistics and increased inequality are correlated with the decline in union membership? mr. reich: i think they are directly correlated. if you look at the rise of unions and terms of the percentage of americans in the private-sector that were unionized, and the decline of unions, you see the peak years of unionization were 1940 until 1978, and those were exactly the years we have the greatest degree of equality in this country in terms of income and wealth spread more equitably than today. sen. lujan: ms. bates, i much appreciate having you here today and i want to make sure i give you some time to answer this question. it is similar to a question you were asked earlier. what would having the opportunity to join a union mean to you and your coworkers? ms. bates: what having a union

would mean to me and my coworkers is our voices are being amplified. it would give us an even playing field, to negotiate better pay wages. that means a living wage and not just the minimum wage. it would mean we had job security and people will not get fired for mundane things or be afraid they will get fired for doing something they had no idea of doing. it would bring us respect and a sense of empowerment, that we believe we are valued. it would bring commitment to the job. having a union to amplify what we are saying would bring us security, and not just an amazon investment. sen. lujan: i want to thank you for being here today. while i appreciate the expertise

of the panelists and witnesses, especially the expertise i have benefited from the work he has done as secretary of labor and advocacy, secretary reich, your testimony has been compelling. thank you for coming today. and the chair and the ranking member for bringing us today. i yield back. sen. sanders: thank you. i'm not sure if we will have another senator or not join us. let me wrap up this hearing by thanking all of the panelists and senators who participated. the issue we are dealing with today, income and wealth and inequality is an issue that has to be addressed and it is an issue that will determine what kind of nation we wish to become. we are the wealthiest nation in the history of the world, but the truth is half of our people are living paycheck-to-paycheck,

many millions of people are working for starvation wages. as a result of the pandemic, people are wondering how they will feed their kids and avoid eviction, how they will go to the doctor when they or family member gets sick. i think our goal is to create a nation where the economy works for all people and not just the very few. but that is where we are right now. i think some of the discussion this morning has been about that it is not only the absurd to the of two people in america owning more wealth than the bottom half of the country, it is the kind of power that the people on top have to hire lobbyists in washington to influence legislative decisions, to own media, to make campaign contributions. there is a reason why the rich get richer and so many other

people are becoming poorer. that's not just economic decisions but political decisions as well, and too often those decisions are influenced by the people who have the money. this is an issue, i think this was an excellent hearing, and i thank all of our panelists for participating and we look forward to pursuing this issue in the months to come. thank you all very much, and this hearing is ended. [gavel bangs]

>> should the district of columbia become a state? a committee is hosting a hearing on the issue. watch live monday on c-span two online at c-span.org, or listen with the free c-span radio app. >> saturday on the communicators, a california democratic congressman talks about legislation on data privacy and social media regulation. >> the american people feel like their privacy has been invaded and they are not wrong about that. not just the big tech companies, but a lot of people have access to your data, and that means they know what activities you do when you are not working, where you might frequent, what you buy at stores. that is a lot of very private

information that should not be in the hands of whoever wants to buy it. i think that's the reason we need to look at privacy. >> watched the communicators saturday on c-span. >> at the white house coronavirus task force briefing, officials said nearly 4 million vaccinations would be "leant" to mexico and canada. they also announced more than one million vaccinations have been administered to date in the u.s., ahead of the president's stated goal. >> they give for joining us today. today we will get a state of the pandemic update. and doctor fauci will highlight the latest science. but first, i want to start with theor