There are more than 770,000 people homeless today, and about 60% of Americans say they are living paycheck to paycheck. In our rural communities, shelters are scarce, and many of the homeless are couch surfing at the homes of friends of family members. They may not even identify as homeless.
Meanwhile, many of the top 1% have lower tax rates than a majority of Americans. It’s a massively uneven playing field, and they have enlisted the average workers to fight on their behalf. Corporate welfare for the wealthy, rugged individualism for the poor — as they lay out plans to hack away at social programs that are critical to providing a safety net for the most vulnerable people in our communities.
We need change.
But if it’s brought to us by billionaires who are primarily worried about their personal interests, it is not going to be the kind of change we hoped for.
As we watch our government today blurring the lines more than ever with the multi-billionaire-owned private sector, now is the perfect time to remember.
Remember the dust bowl, the shanty towns, the ceaseless efforts to drive down wages to unlivable standards and taking advantage of hard-working people caught in bad circumstances, the scenes of starving kids huddled in our streets. A lack of protections for the average people – no insurance protecting your checking accounts, no social security protecting your future, no collective bargaining opportunities. Generations of freedom fighters fought so the masses would not live like huddled livestock or scrape by just to find a meal. It’s not an exaggeration; it’s history that we must honor and tell.
Government programs — like social security, Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau — were created to help set a basic standard of living and security for Americans. Additional taxes were imposed on those who were fortunate enough to be thriving amidst widespread hardship (including individuals and corporations). Those social programs and policies helped expand the working class and created new economic opportunities.
It’s why pre-Reagan, a father could support a family of four on a single income.
And those programs are all under attack today more than ever.
It’s a fight that never ends.
We must stay vigilant.
Be a part of collective action. Fight back with your time and your money.
There’s a reason the conservative party works so hard to create barriers to education; they want to keep the masses uninformed and confused. They want us to be focused on superficial and trivial things instead of remembering the core tenets and aspirations of our nation’s founding documents.
It’s all so they can drive profits to the wealthy.
Time and time again, it’s been proven that trickle-down economics and tax cuts for the rich do not lead to economic growth. It leads to stagflation.
The government is not meant to function as a for-profit entity, providing cost savings to taxpayers as compared to if these services were rendered on the private market.
Too many people seem to forget why things are set up the way that they are.
It’s time we remember who we are, why these programs exist, and what the progressive movement is really about.
It’s about all of us – the working class, the people whose labor makes our communities possible. It’s about ensuring the government works for all of us, regardless of class, color, creed, who we love, or where we live. It’s about making sure that the privileged in our society pay their fair share so that no one has to live in abject poverty.
When we see that we have the same common struggle and can find our common ground, looking beyond our superficial differences, we’re a force to be reckoned with.
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If you’re curious about the experiences of the poor or migrant workers, or if you have ever called such people lazy… read The Grapes of Wrath.
If you are working and can’t figure out why you can’t get ahead… read The Grapes of Wrath.
If you’ve ever wondered why unions exist and about why collective action has been the means for all progress… read The Grapes of Wrath.
Click here for links and resources
- https://publicintegrity.org/inequality-poverty-opportunity/taxes/unequal-burden/how-four-decades-of-tax-cuts-fueled-inequality/
- https://www.npr.org/2025/02/28/nx-s1-5296986/trump-worker-cuts-social-security-administration
- https://www.cnbc.com/2025/03/01/doge-actions-may-cause-social-security-benefit-interruption-ex-agency-head.html
- https://www.nbcnews.com/business/personal-finance/consumers-can-protect-finances-cfpb-limbo-rcna192261
- https://www.propublica.org/article/national-debt-trump
- https://www.npr.org/2011/08/06/139027615/a-national-debt-of-14-trillion-try-211-trillion
- https://www.huffpost.com/entry/elon-musk-social-security-ponzi-scheme_n_67c337cce4b049364f4586a3
Rural Progressive Voices 