Paul Tonko: “Thank you, Representative Edwards, for bringing us together this evening on what I think is a very timely discussion.…”

“Thank you, Representative Edwards, for bringing us together this evening on what I think is a very timely discussion. You know, it seems as though 43-year-old history resonates profoundly today. The same battles for which Martin Luther King had fought, the eloquence with which he raised America's consciousness is needed today, not only in the halls of government but across America, to understand that there is an attack, I believe, on workers. {time} 2030 There is a diminution of the impact of our middle class, our working families in this country, when we look at the fact that the top 10 percent of Americans now own or earn around 50 percent of our national income. We look at stats from 1950 that has the executive salaries somewhere in a 30-to-1 ratio compared to the American worker. By the year 2000, that had changed drastically to some 300-to-1 to 500-to-1. So it's obvious that the gap between those who are drawing large paychecks and the workers, the masses that make things work, that have the need to have purchasing power so as to enable our economy to function and function well, have been threatened. They have been at risk.…”