Within the 99%, differences are important. Who goes to college, work, prison; who ends up on the street? Statistics that rhyme!
Mic check!
We are the 99%
Many of us can’t afford our rent
Some have a house and some have a tent
The wealth of the nation has been misspent
Differences among us
we must not
circumvent
64%
of statistics
are made up
on the spot
Even so:
(50 Ways…)
You know it’s really not my habit to intrude
All right it is, I know statistics can be misconstrued
But I’ll just do the math
About how we’re all being screwed
There must be things it pays to discover
It could take 50 days to uncover
Cuz the capital gains tax
Is lower than mine that’s the facts
The more money you make, Jake
The less FICA you pay
(99 bottles….)
90% at the bottom make one
35th of the top 1%
Take the dough down and pass it around
Oops that’s class war never mind
90% at the bottom owns twenty-
Five percent of all wealth
Top 1% has 40%
And also they have their health
(When I was 17)
When I made 17
hundred times average pay
It was a very good gig
For a top CEO with bonuses bright
I’d hide from the lights and the TV screen
While my salary careened
(50 ways…)
Net worth of a family
for blacks is 20% of whites approximately
Latinos 27, give or take point three
I give you that one free
Net debt of a family
As a percentage of net worth, let’s see
It’s 3 times as high for Blacks you see
And Latinos similarly
In the latest economic torment
white wealth declined 16%
African Americans 53
Latinos 66, whoo-ee
(76 Trombones)
76 percent is what women make
To the 100 that men take home every day
They are followed by Blacks and Latinos at 57 per
cent of whites, that’s quite a rate of pay
1 little, 2 little, 3 little benefits
Taken away as society retrofits
Union membership down to 12%
Pension & health care destroyed
(50 Ways…)
6 people at Walmart own
Same as the bottom 30% who’ve been thrown
Down to where they owe more than they’ve every known
They can’t get themselves free
(When I was 17)
When I was unemployed
It was a very good year
A very good year for blue-blooded crooks
Of extravagant means
They’d ride in limousines
We had nothing to drive
10% barely alive
(76 Trombones)
76% of our college costs
Were once taken care of by our Pell grants
Now it’s fallen to 33 and for folks like you and me
We’ll be living in the basement at our aunt’s
There are whites who go to college and Latinos too
Though not quite as likely, by percent it’s 42
Blacks are found to be 3/5ths
As likely to be studying with
The rest of the upward mobile crew
(1 little…..)
Half of the country’s leading figures have degrees
From the same 13 universities
1 of 12 students there come from the bottom half
So much for upward mobility
and rhymes
Blacks and Latinos are 65%
Of those in prison while 13.2%
Of black men can’t vote because of this predicament
And guess who gets stopped and frisked
Warren Buffet pays 17%
His secretary can maybe pay the rent
Top 1% saved $150,000 in the
Unkindest tax cuts of all
(Somewhere, My Love):
25% of blacks live in poverty
Women and kids stuck there especially
Trillion dollar wars, paid for by me and you
20% of the budget before we’re through
Who fights? Lots from the middle of the bottom
And a bit lower for those who get killed or maimed
(1 little,….)
13% of the homeless are veterans
42% are African American
1 out of 4 are mentally ill in the
Richest country on earth
Mic check!
This is the hour of our discontent
Society we’re gonna re-invent
We occupy to represent
To inequality we won’t consent
Revolution is a permanent event
The top 1/10th of 1 percent
Is 100%
Guilty!