In 2020, industrial laundry workers made $10.13 an hour on average, while the CEO of the largest laundry corporation in the United States made $9,778,369. This is a typical disparity in today’s economy, in which more is owned by fewer people than at any point in US history, and in which unions have collapsed: union density has fallen to 6.4 percent in the private sector, around 11 percent overall, similar to the percentage it was in 1900, when the ILGWU was formed. These numbers form a telling equation. Since union density fell below 25 percent in 1977, income inequality has risen exponentially every year. In fact, the only years in our entire history in which the share of income held by the top 10 percent declined are years when union density was above 27 percent, from 1942 to 1973.