When justifying the Republicans' December 2017 $1.5 trillion tax cut for corporations and the wealthy, President Donald Trump and House Speaker Paul Ryan claimed that it would result, in 2018, in wage gains for American workers ranging from $4,000 to $9,000 each.  But nothing like that materialized.  In fact, the real wages of American workers (that is, wages after adjusting for inflation) declined.  By contrast, the average wealth of the 400 richest Americans soared--from $6.7 billion to $7.2 billion each, and the wealth of the ten richest Americans grew by nearly 20 percent.