Top 1% Got 93% of Income Growth as Rich-Poor Gap Widened

[kpete]

Source: Bloomberg

Top 1% Got 93% of Income Growth as Rich-Poor Gap Widened

The recovery that officially began in mid-2009 hasn’t arrived in most Americans’ paychecks. In 2010, the top 1 percent of U.S. families captured as much as 93 percent of the nation’s income growth, according to a March paper by Emmanuel Saez, a University of California at Berkeley economist who studied Internal Revenue Service data.

Political Battleground

The earnings gap between rich and poor Americans was the widest in more than four decades in 2011, Census data show, surpassing income inequality previously reported in Uganda and Kazakhstan. The notion that each generation does better than the last -- one aspect of the American Dream -- has been challenged by evidence that average family incomes fell last decade for the first time since World War II.

In this recovery it’s proved better to own stock than a house. For stockholders like Hemsley, the value of all outstanding shares has soared $6 trillion to $17 trillion since June 2009, the recession’s end. Even after a recent rebound, the value of owner-occupied housing, the chief asset of most middle- income families, has dropped $41 billion in the same period, part of a $5.8 trillion loss in home values since 2006.

CEO Blogger

“Income inequality of the scale we have today is destroying our democracy,” retired American Airlines CEO Bob Crandall said in an interview. Crandall, 76, says he became so frustrated at what he sees as selfishness among his peers that he started writing a blog on his Lenovo laptop. “Anyone else willing?” he titled his first entry in August 2011, which argued that people should pay higher taxes.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-02/top-1-got-93-of-income-growth-as-rich-poor-gap-widened.html

[UrbScotty]

1. Still waiting for tht trickle-down...

[OnyxCollie]

4. Wall Street just opened another bottle of Bollingers.

Give it about a half hour to get through their system. Expect the trickle-down shortly thereafter.

[thelordofhell]

2. And Mitt Romney smiled that day

For he knows he just keeps getting richer.........

[aggiesal]

3. They've got RMoney! n/t

[Faygo Kid]

5. Obama and the Dems have got to take this on.

This simply can't continue. And of course it will worsen tenfold if the GOP gets in. I don't know if the Dems have it in them for this, since they really on $$$ as well.

We need more Bernie Sanders types.

[OnyxCollie]

8. "We need more Bernie Sanders types."

Not electable.

Not realistic.

Not pragmatic, i.e., would be unable to compromise and would result in zero legislation being passed.

These are just a few of the excuses provided by the Blue Dog Dems, those mighty Defenders of the Status Quo, when someone brings up the need for more effective Congress members.

Blue Dog Dems- They're like an appendix; they serve no function and cause problems when irritated.

[bvar22]

15. Bad Day for the Democratic Party the 90s when the DLC "Centrists"...

.... opened the tent to the Chamber of Commerce and the CEOs.
There is a good reason why Management does not have a vote at Union Meetings.



[font color=firebrick][center]The Democratic Party is a BIG TENT, but there is NO ROOM for those
who advance the agenda of THE RICH (Corporate Owners) at the EXPENSE of LABOR and the POOR. [/font][/center]

[font size=5 color=firebrick]Solidarity![/font]

[SoapBox]

6. It just makes me sick...

And I'm so tired of Trickling Up my monies, to those FAT, FAT, FAT Cats (sorry for the insult Cats.)

[erpowers]

7. Increase Wages and Increase Interest Rates

I understand increasing interest rates could be more of a problem than increasing wages in that the economy may not have fully recovered. However, wages need to go up. An increase in wages would mostly improve the economy and reduce the wealth gap.

[Berlum]

9. "MORE MORE MORE MORE tax breaks for the rich." - Republicans

"We want MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE MORE." - Republicans

[SamKnause]

10. Income Inequality

I guess this is good news to all of the Mitt Romney supporters.

I will never understand their mindset.

[Shitty Mitty]

16. The parasites need to be punished

This is the RW mindset of today's America:

"The poor are poor because they're lazy, blah blah blah standard Randian bullshit, so they ought to be punished and that punishment comes by way of getting poorer, because it's their own fault they're poor. Meanwhile, the rich (the Galtian Supermen, the only true producers, who somehow produce everything on Earth while sitting on their ass) deserve their wealth because of some more Randian dog shit."

[SamKnause]

21. Parasites

They are a sickening, selfish, uncaring lot.

The world would be a kinder gentler place without them.

[SamKnause]

27. Inequality

I am in 100% agreement.

[Justice]

11. Stunning, absolutely damning piece

[DaveJ]

12. I have a possible solution...

Everyone in the top 1% should be required to submit and essay explaining what they are doing to ease the burden of the less fortunate.

Their essays can be reviewed by people who are in the bottom 10% financially, who are selected fairly and paid with a 1% additional tax on the richies. The reviews should include further suggestions for next year, and if the essay is denied, the richies should then have their taxes doubled or tripled.

The thing is most the richies are earning interest on their investments. Once they hit $1 million you can just sit back and do nothing while collecting interest. Then there are people worth 20, 50, hundreds of millions who just sit around making thousands of dollars a day doing absolutely nothing. My essay system would at least require them to do something they never usually do -- show empathy toward others. It is absolutely unacceptable that we should live in a Plutocracy where the rich have no obligations whatsoever.

[Shitty Mitty]

17. Ha! Too tame!

I say round them up, all of them, and send them to concentration camps where they'd actually do work for once in their life and learn what sweat is. These people are TERRORISTS, terrorists who we are at WAR with. NO ONE should make a single dollar by sitting on their ass. They wouldn't be able to write an essay on how they help others - because empathy simply does not exist within their mind!

[DaveJ]

22. Yeah that would be great.

It's not so much the sweat of work, but the monotony. Year and year, decade after decade, and after that, there is still a high likelihood of being destitute at age 70. it would take them a lifetime to understand work.

Actually I think they'd be incompetent at most jobs. It would cost more to train them. We could look at it like providing them a "service". I don't think that would benefit anyone else though.

[FailureToCommunicate]

13. The rich get the (car) elevators and we get

the shaft!

[Shitty Mitty]

18. The pic sums up the Randian States of America perfectly

nt

[llmart]

14. The greed by some in this country is abominable.

I will never understand how some people in this country can be so selfish and greedy and this keeps getting worse. I just hope that there really is some sort of karma and that somehow, some way the people in this country who are getting richer and richer while not helping those less fortunate pay for it in the end.

[Shitty Mitty]

19. They can be selfish and greedy cuz they read Fatlas Shat and think they're Supermen(TM)

I swear, Ayn Rand was worse than Hitler in the long run

[PD Turk]

20. So that's why they hate the President

The upper 1% was only able to capture a measly 93% of the income growth with Obama in the WH, they're counting on Mittens to get that other 7% for them, after all, who do these 99%ers think they are anyway, income growth is for the wealthy!

[4lbs]

23. Whenever Repugs and rich people whine about "why should rich people pay the bigger share of taxes?"

Just point to this factual data.

"Because rich people got 90%+ of the income growth, meaning they got richer faster! They got the bigger share of gain."

Simple.

[woo me with science]

24. K&R

[woo me with science]

25. Kick

[woo me with science]

26. Kick