1 in 4 Americans are trapped and both parties built the cage

Friends,

A new national study from the Ludwig Institute has revealed the damning news that nearly 25% of Americans are “functionally unemployed.”

Not just out of work—but stuck in part-time jobs, poverty-wage gigs, or unstable labor that doesn’t allow them to live. 

They’re working—but they can’t eat well. Can’t get healthcare. Can’t save. Can’t breathe.

This didn’t happen by accident.

For the last 50 years, both political parties—the entire bipartisan establishment—have presided over a slow, brutal dismantling of the New Deal social contract.

• They gutted welfare under Clinton and Gingrich.
  

• They repealed Glass-Steagall and handed Wall Street the keys to the economy.
  

• They outsourced entire industries, crushed unions, and celebrated NAFTA like it was liberation.

And when working people demanded relief, they got means testing, shrugs, and capitulation dressed up as compromise.

This is not a political system in crisis. It’s a system functioning exactly as designed: To extract from the many and consolidate for the few.

If you’re ready to stop feeding a system that feeds on us—chip in now and help us build the political power they never wanted working people to have.

And here in California—a state run entirely by Democrats, with a supermajority in the legislature and a national-stage governor—we see the same cruelty. 

We have the highest cost of living in the nation. We’ve got gig workers still begging for basic rights while tech CEOs get tax breaks. And working families are paying more for childcare than they do for college tuition—with no serious plan from Sacramento to fix it.

We are told to be grateful.

To be realistic.

That Democrats are “doing their best.”

Their best is not enough. Their best is managed decline.

Because the duopoly doesn’t work for you. It works for the donor class. For the banks. For the landlords. For the war profiteers.

If you're ready to break free from the lie that this is the best we can do—help us build something real. The Green Party isn’t offering tweaks—we’re building a new foundation. 

One rooted in public ownership, debt cancellation, guaranteed housing, and a state budget that serves human need, not corporate portfolios. 

Under our leadership, California can lead the nation in transforming how we work, live, and care for each other. 

That’s what scares the duopoly: not our protest, but our potential. 

Because if the millions left behind by this economy organize together, we don’t just win elections—we change the terms entirely.

If you believe it’s time, not to wait, but to act—chip in now and help us grow this movement.

Peace and Power,

Butch Ware