Gilded Age vs. Today's Labor Movement: Fact-Checking the Claims

🎯 Reality Check: Mostly legit 😎

📝 Why: The comparison to the Gilded Age (late 1800s, marked by huge income gaps and booming industrial corporations led by tycoons—think Rockefellers and Carnegies) is common in social commentary. Recent studies do show rising inequality: According to Credit Suisse’s 2022 report, the richest 1% now own nearly half the world’s wealth. The USA and UK both saw major strikes in the last few years (like the US Writers’ Guild, UK nurses, Royal Mail, rail workers). Experts like historian Richard White have said, “It does look like inequality is back to levels we haven't seen since the Gilded Age.” However, today’s unions operate under very different laws and social settings than in the 1890s; union membership is much lower, and industries are more diverse, so it’s not a perfect match.

🔗 Source: Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2022; “Are we living in a new Gilded Age?”, The Economist, 2023; Prof. Richard White (Stanford historian), NPR, 2022.