U.S. Income Inequality: Top 1 Percent Take Home 24 Percent Of U.S. Income

The New York Times:

The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.

Read the whole story: The New York Times

Comments

[enlightenedgirl]

12:14 PM on 11/08/2010

The Republican Party really did it to the American worker, didn't they?  And for some reason people continue to vote for them!  I am amazed at the ignorance...

[gentlewomanfarmer]

08:19 AM on 11/09/2010

I call it the lottery mentality; "have nots" vote Republican, thinking that if they do they will be on their way to becoming "haves" after all.

Or, if you prefer, the country club mentality: people who vote against their self-interest time and time again, thinking that they actually have a chance of joining the country club that will never, ever, offer them membership.

Ultimately, it's classic bait and switch. The Republicans play these chumps day in and day out, and the chumps never catch on.

[SurfinSteve]

06:14 PM on 11/09/2010

I will point out that the greedy corporate sponsored dems (most of them) are only slightly better than the loathsome repugs. If the dems actually did what they promised I could agree with you.

[Kontract Killa]

11:19 AM on 12/02/2010

Yes, exactly. Its very sad. They have for years coerced the American people into believing in all sorts of economic vodoo which they claim is: "part of America's majic" or ordained by the constitution, or the results of "spirit of american capitalism"...when the simple truth is that economic expansions, and therefore the wealth genereated during them, are merely, and finally, the result and product of credit expansion, with the ultimate source of that credit being the government .

This is essentially what the current economic crisis has laid bare, for all who are brave enough and honest enough to take a good critical analytical look, to see. These cycles have occured since the beginings of large urbanized populations on this earth thousands of years ago, and are based on the concept of credit....and the theory of the greater fool, which is best articulated by Mr. P.T. Barnum who postualated that "a sucker is born every day".

When you put the two together, government sponsored credit cycles, and legalized deception, fraud, and theft , (within the law and constitution, of course) you get the kind of ponzi-scheme economy that curretly exist in this country and in many others.

Ordinary people then, those of us of average means or less, are seen as prey in this economy. Companies lie to us daily without fear of the law aboutthe quality, efficacy, legality, health effects, financial security, real cost, durability, safety and danger of the products and services that they market!

[FoonTheElder]

11:43 AM on 11/08/2010

A very few big winners with most people losing is what Reaganomics and trickle down was all about. The Republicans budget plan, which eliminates income taxes on capital gains, dividends, interest, corporations and estates will make this even worse. Of course they will replace these taxes with a consumption tax that will increase the overall taxes of the non-wealthiest. Don't worry though, the Republicans will still tax working people's wages. The top 400 individual taxpayers per the IRS by Adjusted Gross Income (not even Gross Income) saw their average effective federal income tax rate go from: 29.4% in 1993 29.9% in 1995 17.2% in 2006 16.6% in 2007 http://www­.irs.gov/p­ub/irs-soi­/07intop40­0.pdf Page 9 The top 1% already pay less of a percent of ALL taxes as a percentage of ALL income than the next 19% and not much more than the 60% after that. http://www­.ctj.org/p­df/taxday2­009.pdf "So while US workers are now working more hours and have become dramatically more productive and profitable, our pay is actually declining and all the dramatic increases in wealth are going straight into the pockets of the Economic Elite. If our income had kept pace with compensation distribution rates established in the early 1970s, we would all be making at least three times as much as we are currently making. How different would your life be if you were making $120,000 a year, instead of $40,000? So it should come as no surprise to see that we now have the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world and the highest inequality of wealth in our nation’s history. The backbone of America, a hard-working middle class that has made our country a world leader, has been devastated." http://amp­­edstatus.­c­om/full-­re­port-th­e-e­conomi­c-el­ite-v­s-the­-peo­ple-of­-th­e-unite­d-­states-o­f­-america

[lrobb]

02:56 PM on 11/08/2010

Actually, the average voter would be making about the same, but the top 1% would have considerably reduced incomes. The money which used to go the the wealthy would now flow to the government.

If the government were functional--big "if"--you might see more scientific research, better maintained infrastructure, improved education and far less discussion about the insolvency of Social Security and Medicare.

As a Moderate Conservative I have no problem with that scenario. Unfortunately it would probably look more like $800 toilet seats and bridges to nowhere no matter which party was in charge.

[Dave Thinkster Paulson]

08:34 PM on 11/08/2010

It's not like there's a natural law that states that government cannot be efficient. What's happened is that we have the government-is-broken-so-starve-it elitists on one side and the government-is-broken-but-we-still-have-to-feed-it crowd on the other. What we need is a new movement to ask the serious questions of what do we want to get from our government, how will we pay for it, and how can we make it as efficient as possible?

The only valid path is from a grassroots effort with Tea Party energy but a systematic approach to inquiry, dialog and the identification of solutions. The entire discourse needs to be brought down a notch from the predefined political positions, like "small government," and reintroduced at the basic services, costs and methods level.

If we could get this point, I'm confident that we would find significant commonality from the vast majority of Americans. The starting point is ridding the election process of control by private money followed by transparency at every step.

There are a growing number of groups who believe this is possible, including the Coffee Party and the Transpartisan Alliance. I hope they're right.

[SurfinSteve]

06:18 PM on 11/09/2010

As long as that toilet seat was Made in America, whats the problem. We let Wall Street fraudsters make $$$$$$ for trading toilet paper, why not $800 for a toilet seat?

[CommanderChe]

07:44 PM on 11/08/2010

Good post

[FoonTheElder]

11:41 AM on 11/08/2010

A very few big winners with most people losing is what Reaganomics and trickle down was all about. The Republicans budget plan, which eliminates income taxes on capital gains, dividends, interest, corporations and estates will make this even worse. Of course they will replace these taxes with a consumption tax that will increase the overall taxes of the non-wealthiest. Don't worry though, the Republicans will still tax working people's wages. The top 400 individual taxpayers per the IRS by Adjusted Gross Income (not even Gross Income) saw their average effective federal income tax rate go from: 29.4% in 1993 29.9% in 1995 17.2% in 2006 16.6% in 2007 http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-soi/07intop400.pdf Page 9 The top 1% already pay less of a percent of ALL taxes as a percentage of ALL income than the next 19% and not much more than the 60% after that. http://www.ctj.org/pdf/taxday2009.pdf "So while US workers are now working more hours and have become dramatically more productive and profitable, our pay is actually declining and all the dramatic increases in wealth are going straight into the pockets of the Economic Elite. If our income had kept pace with compensation distribution rates established in the early 1970s, we would all be making at least three times as much as we are currently making. How different would your life be if you were making $120,000 a year, instead of $40,000? So it should come as no surprise to see that we now have the highest inequality of wealth in the industrialized world and the highest inequality of wealth in our nation’s history. The backbone of America, a hard-working middle class that has made our country a world leader, has been devastated." http://amp­edstatus.c­om/full-re­port-the-e­conomic-el­ite-vs-the­-people-of­-the-unite­d-states-o­f-america

[lrobb]

11:10 AM on 11/08/2010

Anyone here who is a policy wonk should really take the time to slog through the 40 pages the author referenced on The Great Divergence published in Slate.

Timothy Noah came to the conclusion, based on excellent research, that income inequality was caused by the following:

05% Tax policy
05% Immigration
10% Trade imbalance
20% Decline of organized labor
30% Regulations favoring Wall Street/Finance
30% Decline in education

It would be interesting to know if there is a corresponding analysis done by a well-respected Conservative.

Interesting statistic is that income inequality has always corresponded closely with a growth of bank failures.

I keep remembering Henry Ford's statement that he paid his workers better wages so they could afford to buy his cars. Henry Ford did not have foreign competition.

If Noah is correct, however, 60% of income inequality could be reversed with common sense regulation of the finance industry and greatly improving the education of our children. One of the few economic issues on which both the Tea Party and Liberals agree is that Wall
Street got the gold mine and Main Street got the shaft.

[lrobb]

11:14 AM on 11/08/2010

PS: Yes, I know the percentages only add up to 95%. They are precisely as stated by Noah. I am presuming "other" constitutes the remaining 5%.

[enlightenedgirl]

12:15 PM on 11/08/2010

LOL!  Well Respected Conservative!  Where?  There is no such thing.  Ct exist anymore.

[enlightenedgirl]

12:16 PM on 11/08/2010

my posts have been messed up all morning, going to leave, not worth it and it's beautiful outside.  bye, bye.

[nfatt1]

10:16 AM on 11/08/2010

Aren't the Pottiers and the conservatives against the redistribution of wealth?

[shaunmarie]

09:58 AM on 11/08/2010

Last night, I was reading my son Aesop's fables.

There was the story of the goose who laid golden eggs. Eventually, the man and the woman who owned the goose decided they weren't getting rich enough fast enough, so they decided to slaughter the goose, and get all of the eggs at once.

The rich and powerful in this country have already slaughtered the goose.

[Weareonenow]

11:48 AM on 11/09/2010

Sorry , they slaughtered the American geese because they found 2.5 billion younger ones in India and China !

[SurfinSteve]

06:39 PM on 11/09/2010

Amazing how something like Aesop's fables could remain so relevant. I guess things really don't change that much.

[vippy]

05:29 AM on 11/08/2010

We have been a banana republic for some time now!  People just could not see it because of the credit available to them.  Europeans have their purchases deducted from their bank account immediately.  We can't do that because there is no money there!  The income disparity is too great.
Oh yes, do deduct the 360 billionaires from the rest and you truly see the real income of Americans. 
It just destorts the whole picture.  People just love to lie into their own pockets. 

[knightoftheroundtable]

02:07 AM on 11/08/2010

This is a very exciting time to be living. Those who are alive today and still alive in another10 to 15 years will see history as America becomes a shell and ruled by the elitist who will no longer have to pretend to have elections. We are living in the most historical erosion of a great nation. Never in history has a nation reached our stratosphere and destroyed itself in such a short time. It took Rome hundreds of years, we are doing it in a matter of decades. Yes, this is indeed history, and we are living it.

[Joseph J Schuler]

02:10 AM on 11/08/2010

Let's not admit defeat, just yet. We need to act, not meekly give in.

[muck-raker]

07:47 AM on 11/08/2010

Joseph agreed F&F....Every American needs to look at this short video....WHY...Because this is what Corporation America has in store for us.... just do it.

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7932485454526581006#

[vippy]

05:31 AM on 11/08/2010

Been a long time coming but they reached their goals, we are fighting each other.  I bet other countries now developing learned from the USA and won't repeat the same mistakes.  I know China already stated this.  Why would anyone even put up with having a Mafia like government like we have is a puzzle to me. 

[Gary James]

01:03 AM on 11/08/2010

What is the consensus then of what everyone should earn? Don't say a living wage that isn't a number.

[shaunmarie]

10:08 AM on 11/08/2010

Economic policy needs to be sensible - and what we have now is not. If a worker cannot afford to purchase the products he makes, he is not paid enough; simple as that. If a man makes so much money that he cannot spend it - that is not sensible either.

Once upon a time the very rich were taxed at very high rates. Now, to be in that 70 percent and above tax bracket - you were making so much money that you lived quite well on what remained. And do you know how the rich saved on taxes? THEY INVESTED THEIR MONEY IN JOB CREATION, PHILANTHROPY AND PAYROLL.

Reagan changed all that, the the entire weight of the economy moved onto the backs of the poor and middle class - in the form of credit card spending. The wealthy, no longer needing tax breaks, shifted manufacturing overseas, stopped their silly philanthropy, and - having been fully supported by the middle class and poor for a generation, have succeeded in destroying the US in a way the communists never dreamed of.

[IndependentMeans]

01:01 AM on 11/08/2010

Most of us don't need to read this, we live this.

[muck-raker]

07:52 AM on 11/08/2010

IndependentMeans...agreed F&F...excerpt Paul Roberts: Last May I was in St. Louis and was struck by block after block of deserted and boarded up homes, deserted factories and office buildings, even vacant downtown storefronts.

Detroit is trying to shrink itself by 40 square miles. On October 25, 60 Minutes had a program on unemployment in Silicon Valley, where formerly high-earning professionals have been out of work for two years and today cannot even find part-time $9 an hour jobs at Target.

The claim that jobs offshoring by US corporations increases domestic employment in the US is one of the greatest hoaxes ever perpetrated. As I demonstrated in my syndicated column at the time and again in my book, How The Economy Was Lost (2010), Slaughter reached his erroneous conclusion by counting the growth in multinational jobs in the U.S. without adjusting the data to reflect the acquisition of existing firms by multinationals and for existing firms turning themselves into multinationals by establishing foreign operations for the first time. There was no new multinational employment in the U.S. Existing employment simply moved into the multinational category from a change in the status of firms to multinational.

http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts10282010.html

[IndependentMeans]

05:04 PM on 11/08/2010

F & F

[One more Thing]

11:17 PM on 11/07/2010

The war on the rich keeps getting closer!!

[WoodyCPM]

08:37 AM on 11/08/2010

It can't get here fast enough. I'll be dead before justice is ever done.

[WashingtonDCsucks]

11:40 PM on 11/08/2010

One would think with all the time on their hands the rich would be better versed in French history.
They will be introduced to the sharper edges of it if they continue in their blatant pillaging of the USA.

[jo smith456]

09:09 PM on 11/07/2010

Extend the tax-cut for the rich; bailout the biggies of the financial industries; do war-mongering. All in the name of improving our economy. These are the same strategies employed by the administrations in the past 10 years (part Clinton and mostly Bush2).
The rich get richer and the poor (middle class?) gets poorer...

Sickening...

[OldTulsan]

08:27 PM on 11/07/2010

The U.S. is NOT experiencing "free" trade that is based on Ricardo's Comparative Advantage.

Instead, the U.S. is experiencing global labor arbitrage:

http://www.whartonsp.com/articles/article.aspx?p=417513
Arbitrage, Hedging, and the Law of One Price

"Arbitrage is the process of buying assets in one market and selling them in another to profit from unjustifiable price differences. This violates the expectation that the same product should sell for the same price.

Arbitrage offers guaranteed profit with no risk, and therefore undermines the stability and functionality of markets. This chapter explains how these expectations and forces interact, and why arbitrage is such a dangerous thing...."

Soon workers will be paid according to the Iron Law of Wages:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/iron+law+of+wages
Iron law of wages | Define Iron law of wages at Dictionary.com

"the doctrine or theory that wages tend toward a level sufficient only to maintain a subsistence standard of living. "

People on a subsistence don't buy much no matter how cheap goods and services from other countries are.

More at:

http://www.manufacturingnews.com/news/newss/carson732.html
Book Review: Ian Fletcher's 'Free Trade Doesn't Work'

[BPCentrisAmerican]

07:13 PM on 11/07/2010

Teddy Roosevelt is spinning in his grave, he fought for economic fairness his whole political life.

[OldTulsan]

08:25 PM on 11/07/2010

http://www.theodore-roosevelt.com/images/research/speeches/trnationalismspeech.pdf
THE NEW NATIONALISM
Osawatomie, Kansas
August 31, 1910.

"...There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done.

We must have complete and effective publicity of corporate affairs, so that people may know beyond peradventure whether the corporations obey the law and whether their management entitles them to the confidence of the public. It is necessary that laws should be passed to prohibit the use of corporate funds directly or indirectly for political purposes; it is still more necessary that such laws should be thoroughly enforced. Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public-service corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs.

It has become entirely clear that we must have government supervision of the capitalization, not only of public-service corporations, including, particularly, railways, but of all corporations doing an interstate business..."

[Eraser]

01:04 PM on 11/08/2010

It's amazing how history is repeating itself letter by letter.

[Bertski]

09:11 AM on 11/10/2010

wow, just wow....

[ewillies]

05:03 PM on 11/07/2010

We have crossed the boundary. For most Americans, America is a banana republic That the mainstream Broadcast News media does not tell this story to Americans to allow them to decide for themselves the type of republic they want is unconscionable. The wealthy did not get there on their own devise. It is a defect in our form of capitalism that allows the hoarding of wealth. Moreover, a willing middleclass is required for the wealthy to exist.

The only method of correcting the defect in our form of capitalism that ultimately transfers wealth from the middleclass to the wealthy is through our tax code. Unfortunately the Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats have characterized increasing taxes on the rich as somehow socialist or job killing. The history of economic growth under more moderately high taxes as well as basic mathematics dispels this notion. It is unfortunate that no media has done any real investigative reporting on the actual effects of wealth hoarding by the wealthy.

If Americans do not wake up, the same instability that is found in countries with this type of wealth and income disparity will afflict us as well. Unlike many other countries, our citizens are well armed and with recent Republican prodding have become very polarized. This is a mixture for disaster.
-----
My Book: As I See It: Class Warfare The Only Resort To Right Wing Doom
Book’s Webpage: http://books.egbertowillies.com - Twitter: http://twitter.com/egbertowillies

[Zhuubaajie]

06:32 PM on 11/07/2010

You are misinformed.

First, your guns are puny compared to theirs. You can put that "well armed" misconcept to rest. Anything but peaceful reform would be suicide.

Second, it is hardly a defect. America is at the pinnacle of free market capitalism. To allow those that are smart and well connected to be all that they can be, there are few rules or regulations that prevent the best from making the most and keeping it all for themselves. The system is designed that way. That's why America beats the other developed nations on economic terms. Without increased intervention, the rich will always win - they are smarter, they have more resources.

Mayhap it is time for the lower 80% to decide whether it is a status quo they can accept.

[TruelyFedUp]

08:59 PM on 11/07/2010

Words of wisdom. Keep on posting!

[ewillies]

09:30 PM on 11/07/2010

With all due respect you are completely wrong. Continuing to believe that America is at the pinnacle without changing to adapt to the new world is what have us as a banana republic. Keep patting yourself on the back as the rest of the world grow. Have you seen the infrastructure building in the east, Brazil, etc. Does BRIC mean anything to you.

If you believe that the maipulation of capital is more important than the invention and creation of products and services then you are a part of the demise of the country. Stop buying Right Wing misinformation. It is killing the country. It is for that reason it is only the top 2% building both income and wealth.

[WoodyCPM]

08:48 AM on 11/08/2010

"Moreover, a willing middleclass is required for the wealthy to exist."

Good post. This reminds me of a New Yorker cartoon. The King is in his kingly outfit, crown, robe. He's standing out on the balcony waving at the crowds gathered below him. He says, "If you don't do what I say, I can't be king."