To the editor: Contributing author Veronique de Rugy accurately describes extreme wealth distribution inequality and its results on the youthful generations (“The monetary engine behind millennial and Gen Z malaise,” Dec. 18). However she then chooses to disregard the largest driver: the tax cuts by Presidents Reagan, George W. Bush and Trump. The web value of the highest 1% hit a document $52 trillion this yr. That’s practically as a lot because the $55-trillion worth of your entire U.S. housing market.
De Rugy then quotes Prime Mover Institute managing director Russ Greene as saying, “Medicare packages are paying for golf balls, inexperienced charges, social membership memberships, horseback driving classes and pet meals.” Both Greene or De Rugy ought to have famous this is applicable virtually completely to some Medicare Benefit packages from personal insurers.
In line with the Middle on Finances and Coverage Priorities, with out Social Safety, 37.3% of Individuals age 65 and older would have incomes beneath the official poverty line. Together with Social Safety, that quantity goes all the way down to about 10%.
In the meantime, from 1989 to 2025, the highest 1% went from holding 23% of the nation’s internet value to greater than 30%. In the identical time interval, the underside 50% went from holding 3.5% of the nation’s internet value to only 2.8%. In line with a 2020 Rand report, an estimated $47 trillion flowed from the underside 90% of Individuals to the highest 1% from 1975 to 2018.
This isn’t on account of Social Safety and Medicare; it’s completely on account of Republican-backed tax cuts.
Norman Rodewald, Moorpark
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To the editor: Actually? I used to chuckle at my grownup kids when their solely response to me for his or her displeasure was, “OK, boomer.”
I’m a senior in my 70s, and I don’t obtain a Social Safety examine as a result of I devoted my profession to public service for 46 years. I’ve amassed wealth, primarily because of paying consideration in my faculty financial system lessons.
As a substitute of piling onto seniors with round lower than 20 years of wholesome life left, I somewhat chalk up the cited malaise to completely different occasions, completely different locations and the eye paid to what you’re voting for. With that stated, after studying this op-ed, I’ve to ask: How do I get a bit of that Medicare program that pays for “golf balls, greens charges, social membership memberships, horseback driving classes, and pet meals”?
Charles Singer, North Hills
