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Hi friend,
While the debates over the 2024 election will continue for some time, it is clearly another reminder that the economy doesn’t work for most Americans. While no single issue explains all things, there is no doubt that the economy was a key driver and that, in many respects, the election can be seen as a cry for help by Main Street Americans. On July 23rd, CNN reported that 39% of Americans worried that they couldn’t pay their bills, which included 52% of Latinos, 46% of Blacks, and 55% of those making less than $55,000. To put that in perspective, that is higher than at any point during the Great Recession after the 2008 financial crash when it peaked at 37%.
They are worrying they can’t pay their bills because too many of them are living paycheck to paycheck, and often not able to afford even basic necessities. That’s one reason credit card debt just hit an all-time high of $1.17 trillion, with Americans paying nearly $164 billion in fees and interest on credit cards in 2022 alone. Few have any savings or assets to fall back on, as highlighted by the wealth gap which has become a wealth gulf: the top 10% of Americans own almost 67% of the wealth while the bottom 50% have just 2.5%.
Unfortunately, much of that is driven by a financial system that often no longer supports the real productive economy and has too often become more of a wealth extraction mechanism than a wealth creation system. While Trump sometimes talks a good game, we expect his administration to make that much worse with broken promises and mindless deregulation of the financial system, as happened during the first Trump term.
Frankly, it has already begun. For example, the Trump campaign said it would cap credit card rates at 10%, which would enormously help Main Street Americans struggling to pay the bills:
However, that policy was under threat just 3 days after he was elected:
He did that presumably because the profits of the gigantic credit card companies would take a hit. Those are the same credit card companies that jacked up their margins from 16.4% in 2021 to 22.8% in 2023 – that’s right, while economy was being shut down and Americans were literally being killed by a pandemic, credit card companies decided that was a good time to increase their profitability by more than 30%.
We expect to see a lot of similar broken promises, policies, actions, and practices during the coming the Trump administration that benefit Wall Street and hurt Main Street. As we did last time, we are going to track, highlight, and seek to hold the incoming administration accountable for those pro-Wall Street actions and fight for policies that protect Main Street Americans.
Remember, a super-majority of Americans on a bipartisan basis agree on these fundamental issues. For example, Sen. Murphy’s poll from Connecticut found that 82 percent of respondents somewhat or strongly agreed that one of the country’s biggest issues is that a “handful of corporations and economic elites have too much power and the government is doing too little about it.” That is certainly true of Wall Street’s biggest banks and the financial system more broadly.
As the majority of Americans feel like they are sinking economically and as this administration is likely to make matters worse, now is the time to fight even harder for our values and prioritize policies benefiting hardworking Americans. For us to do this, we ask for your financial support to continue to be a powerful independent counterweight to Wall Street, even as its allies in the administration and Congress fight for them and their interests.
Thank you for standing with us during this critical time.
Best, Dennis
Dennis Kelleher
Co-Founder, President & CEO
