OPINION — “So this is Christmas, and what have we done?” When John Lennon and Yoko Ono released “Happy Xmas (War Is Over)” in 1971, it wasn’t just another holiday song. It was a haunting reminder that while some celebrated, others lived with war, fear and scarcity.
More than 50 years later, the war is different, but many families still live with those same fears and anxiety. The battle and war cry now is affordability and for basic economic security in the richest nation on earth.
Today in America, the wealthiest 10% of households hold just over 60% of all wealth. This is the greatest level of wealth concentration in our history, and it affects everything from housing to health care to whether a family can withstand a single unexpected bill. 60% of Americans live paycheck to paycheck.
We can watch the gap grow, or we can decide that this is not acceptable.
Come Jan. 1, 2026, Arizona’s state minimum wage will rise to $15.15 per hour. That equates to $31,512 annually.
According to the MIT Living Wage Calculator, a single adult in Maricopa County needs to earn $27 an hour, or $56,160 annually, to cover necessities like housing, food, childcare, health care, transportation and taxes. It is no wonder Millennials and Gen Z feel the American dream is dust in the wind.
With the expiration of Affordable Care Act subsidies, more than half of Americans are concerned they will not be able to afford health care in the coming year. Health care, which is a basic right and provided by every other western democracy, will now lead to millions of Americans not having coverage and may cause unnecessary deaths.
The homeless population in metro Phoenix surged by about 28% in 2025, even as local governments and nonprofits scrambled to add shelter beds and services. Senior citizens, after working hard all their lives and retiring, are having to go back to work to make ends meet due to fixed incomes and escalating prices.
Probably like many readers in Maricopa County, I do not want to leave this economic nightmare to my children and grandchildren, so I am doing something about it.
I launched a nonprofit, Fight for a Living Wage. Our focus is simple: press employers and policymakers to ensure that full-time work provides a genuine living wage and access to affordable health care. Since the late 1970s, CEO pay at major U.S. corporations has grown by more than 1,000%, while typical worker pay has been stagnant even as workers’ productivity has climbed. That imbalance is not an accident. It is a result of corporate greed and putting profits over people.
This is not about punishing success, it’s about values. It’s about compassion, empathy, kindness and believing every American should be able to afford the necessities and live with dignity.
We are the richest country in the world by many measures, and Arizona’s economy continues to grow. We can afford an economy where full-time workers are not living paycheck to paycheck and one medical bill or car repair away from financial devastation.
Fight for a Living Wage is nonpartisan and humanitarian. The rich keep getting richer and middle America is falling behind. A lopsided economy hurts all of us — workers, small-business owner, and even large employers who struggle to retain staff in a high-cost region. We deserve better and we should demand more from our elected representatives. As billionaire Warren Buffett has said, “If you’re in the luckiest one percent of humanity, you owe it to the rest of humanity to think about the other 99 percent.”
As Maricopa County families gather from Surprise to Mesa, from Phoenix to Fountain Hills to ring in the new year, the question is not just whether the economy is growing. The question is who it is growing for, and what we are willing to do to make sure that the people who keep this nation running can afford to live with dignity?
Bill Meade, a former union worker who became CEO of a publicly traded company, is founder and executive director of Fight for a Living Wage, a Scottsdale-based nonprofit. Please submit comments at yourvalley.net/letters or email them to AzOpinions@iniusa.org. We are committed to publishing a wide variety of reader opinions, as long as they meet our Civility Guidelines.
Comments
No comments on this item Please log in to comment by clicking here