McClatchy: The rich are getting much richer, much faster than everyone else

[Pirate Smile]

The rich are getting much richer, much faster than everyone else

By Kevin G. Hall
McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON - Over the past quarter-century, and especially in the last 10 years, America's very rich have grown much richer. No one else fared as well.

In 2004, the richest 1 percent of households - 719,910 of them, with an average annual income of $326,720 - had 19.8 percent of the entire nation's pretax income. That's up from 17.8 percent a year earlier, according to a study by University of California-Berkeley economist Emmanuel Saez.

The study, titled "The Evolution of Top Incomes," also found that the richest one-tenth of 1 percent of Americans - 129,584 households in 2004 - reported income equal to 9.5 percent of national pretax income.



However, median, or midpoint, family income rose only 1.6 percent between 2001 and 2004, when adjusted for inflation, according to the Federal Reserve. Median family real net worth - a family's gross assets minus liabilities - rose only 1.5 percent during those four years.

Those are very sluggish income-growth rates compared with the four years between 1998 and 2001, when median family income grew by 9.5 percent and median family real net worth grew by 10.3 percent.
Experts disagree on the causes, but they're in near agreement that this trend threatens to erode a fundamental American belief about fairness.

http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/15912820.htm

[valerief]

1. But are the rich getting richer FASTER than the poor are getting poorer? nt

[stepnw1f]

2. Buh Bye Tax Cuts

[xchrom]

3. so i guess the rich aren't even pissing down on us anymore.

so much for reagans' legacy.

[Selteri]

5. piss down economics were dicproven during the Roman Empire

You'd think they could have figured it out now that _most_ rich people don't do the 'right thing' for those under them.

[Eurobabe]

4. So much for Bush's trickle down theory - more like a golden shower

on the middle class.