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Comment by danans | Hacker News Reader

Growth on Wall Street isn't growth on main street, and huge corporate and big investor profits (and associated cash hordes) haven't meant economic recovery in the places and communities hardest hit by the opioid epidemic.

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Growth on Wall Street isn't growth on main street

Of course it is. Where do you think main streets pensions and 401k are invested? Where do you think main street people work?

Only a third of Americans -have- a 401k, and only 13% have pensions.

most equity is held by the richest americans, while others primarily depend on wages which haven't risen in decades, basically.

also most people aren't employed by large business.

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us...

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/five-big-myths-about-amer_b_8...

Wages are only one part of compensation. Total compensation has increased faster than inflation over the past decades.

Health insurance costs have increased faster than inflation for decades and is responsible for the total increase in compensation[1].

Workers are not getting more or better benefits. They're getting the same or worse benefits, it's just that health insurance costs for the same plans increase each year at a rate that vastly outpaces inflation.

[1] https://si.wsj.net/public/resources/images/BF-AU065A_INSUR_9...

That's true, but it also contradicts the claim that compensation isn't going up. Sure it's going towards ever more expensive healthcare, but it is going up.

you seem to have both shifted the frame from wages to compensation then defeated a non-existent claim about it, so that seems like a mighty straw man.

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