Cities With Highest Levels Of Income Inequality: Report

Maybe Americans are so fed up with growing income inequality because it's so widespread.

The cities with the highest levels of income inequality aren't limited to a single region, but are rather scattered across the country, recent Census data finds. And Americans aren't pleased. A full two-thirds of Americans said they think wealth should be distributed more evenly, a recent New York Times/CBS poll found.

It's that large and growing gap between the rich and poor that some have blamed for the "Occupy" movement sweeping the nation. Demonstrators have been camped out in Manhattan's Zuccotti Park since September 17 protesting income inequality, among other issues, and forty-three percent of respondents to the NYT/CBS poll said Occupy Wall Street represents the feelings of most Americans.

Indeed, for the richest of Americans, the past thirty years have been a period of extreme prosperity, with the top 1 percent of earners seeing their incomes jump 275 percent between 1979 and 2007, according to the Congressional Budget Office. At the same time, the bottom fifth of earners saw an income boost of less than 20 percent.

And the trend is by no means limited to the U.S. Those earning more than $1 million worldwide now control nearly 40 percent of global wealth, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Despite the gap, there are some who don't see see income inequality as a problem.

"I don't care about that" Texas Governor and Republican presidential candidate Rick Perry said in an interview with the NYT of the possible implications of his flat tax plan on the income gap.

Here are the cities with the highest levels of income inequality, according to Census data:

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Comments

[PDXistmeineliebe]

11:17 PM on 11/10/2011

Why is everything bad usually in the south? Or where right-wingers are in charge?

[Bluzie]

12:10 AM on 11/11/2011

Not sure what you're thinking, but I'd hardly say New Orleans, Miami, Ft. Lauderdale or Atlanta are run by "right-wingers"

[Melissa Wales]

10:34 PM on 11/10/2011

"The cities with the highest levels of income inequality aren't limited to a single region, but are rather scattered across the country, recent Census data finds"

8 of these are in the South!

[Exfl]

09:58 PM on 11/04/2011

Gainesville and Athens are small college towns where thousands of undergraduate and graduate students live off campus. I imagine that skews the data pretty badly

[dovelove]

09:55 AM on 11/01/2011

Louisiana is making the top ten of another list we don't want to be on.

[matt spedale]

07:43 PM on 10/31/2011

I live in Atlanta and don't see anything strange with this. From Midtown up it's extremely nice and wealthy for the most part. From Downtown down it's pretty much the opposite. Wherever there is wealth there are poor people that service them.

[ruffdeezy]

11:31 PM on 10/30/2011

Income inequality sounds very communist.

[furby6]

11:04 AM on 10/31/2011

Take Luongo for instance. He gets paid millions a year and does nothing.

[ruffdeezy]

01:42 PM on 10/31/2011

you sound very bandwagon

[Zutroy]

09:32 PM on 10/30/2011

More proof that Reconstruction didn't go far enough.

[Captjashook]

10:07 AM on 10/30/2011

Hmmmm. The South, nothing has changed. It has been pushing the greedy unregulated totally Free market for 250 years and still is nothing more than excuse for income inequality and a lack of social justice.

I don't think I will ever understand why so many Southerners choose a life of virtual slavery. I guess its in the water down there.

[Birdie]

03:20 PM on 10/29/2011

I'm surprised San Diego isn't on the list. It's a city of extremes...Lot's of rich folks here in posh spots on the coast, and the workers who take care of them live out in the open in the shrubs on the hillsides. You can see the campfires burning at night when you drive through some of these wealthy enclaves. This is where Romney is building another one of his palatial estates.

[Independent66]

11:12 AM on 10/29/2011

Paul Samuelson the respected economist said greed is good! That is what creates economic growth and prosperity. Any other system that has been tried is a failure! Government redistributions do not help people in the long run. Our government has created a framework that is a disincentive to invest and grow here. People need to be able to create wealth for themselves and not be dependent on the government for everything. We have created a society where you can live on government handouts over your entire life.
This article should be talking about creating economic growth in these cities to help everyone. Destroying the incentives to create wealth is what is really wrong.

[MiddleMolly]

02:37 AM on 10/31/2011

Are you foolish enough to think that unless people have the opportunity to make 500 times what the average worker they won't bother to work? Are you foolish enough to think that people would rather struggle on a few hundred bucks a week than get a job? You actually do believe that "greed is good"? You did understand that the purpose of that line in the movie Wall Street so many years ago was to show us how completely evil the uber-rich are? But somehow you think that is right? You really think that people who were among the formerly middle class who are older and now homeless and perhaps have health problems should be left to starve or perhaps live in a cardboard box... that that will inspire them to "create wealth"?

[Independent66]

09:58 AM on 10/31/2011

I didn't say that, you did! Samuelson said it in public and he was serious! I also made no statement about the elderly, etc. The desires of people to create a better life for themselves is what drives wealth creation. Think back to when you were 20 and probably in the lowest 20% on the income scale! I was there too. Were you thinking about? What were your goals? What were you going to accomplish in your life?
I'll bet it was to work, have a family, own a car, home, build a career, etc. No one plans to be poor their entire life unless they are not taught what they need to do to accomplish their goals. That is one of the many reasons why school is mandatory in this country. The results of the next 45 years or so determine where you end up. Those that are successful to move up to the top 50% now pay the vast majority of the income tax. Everyone pays for social programs vis SS and Medical taxes. Helping people over 65 and on Medicare is important to do. Every working person, except government workers, pays into these programs. Where you end up at 65 depends on what you were able to accomplish in those 45 years between 20 and 65. The outcome is certainly not equality! That's good in my opinion!

[Hysterian68]

05:13 PM on 10/28/2011

New York, Washington DC, Atlanta, Miami are time bombs, a people sitting upon a powder keg. Just a matter ot time before the burning fuse hits the powder.

They're populations are clueless and will never know the day and the hour when they are forced to awaken from their slumbers and discover what's happened to them.

Yep, the revolution is coming.

[matt spedale]

07:45 PM on 10/31/2011

Its been this way here in Atlanta for forever and nothing is gonna happen. There are rich people here that hate their lives, their are poor people here that love their lives. You can try to say it's a problem but it's really not.

[chaotician1]

07:34 AM on 10/28/2011

Obviously, the primary driver of inequality is political and financial power! It is telling that the capital of the nation and the finanical centers lead the list; reflecting the disconnect between usefulness and power! The more useless one is; the more power one has; politicians and bankers...useless parasites!

[kidcat24]

11:44 PM on 10/27/2011

So in other words the southerners take it in the, well you know what I mean.

[Sing Out and Slap Iron]

08:44 PM on 10/27/2011

Figures my town would be #4. I believe Miami has the lowest per capita income of the largest 50 cities in the United States.

[M Grey]

05:58 PM on 10/27/2011

Posted by Lila Wilson
“I pose the same question that I always do and that never gets answered. Hopefully you guys can help me out here.

If the top 1% has most of the money and it doesn't reinvest in this country and are paying historical­ly low rates in taxes, what is left over for the rest of us?”
@Lila Wilson
You never get an answer because your the last comment/reply on the HP Totem Thread. No one can reply at that point even those with answers.

Your whole premise is preposterous - the rich pay the most taxes of anyone and heavily invest in the US.
Warren Buffet has a house and probably pays property taxes, local taxes, etc. He's got a staff and even the secretary makes ~$175K. They live in the US pay taxes, etc. He's invested in companies like Coka Cola. Bill Gates and Steve Jobs created their wealth by making products people want in the US. They weren't a part of the 1%, they worked their way to it.

It is true the RATE today is less than the rate in the 1950's. Except that the top marginal bracket in 1950 was $300,000. In today's dollars its nearly $3,000,000. Hardly anyone paid that amount. The top marginal bracket today is $250,000. A large number of people pay that rate.

The top 10% pay most of the taxes and the bottom 47% pay no federal income tax. Seems like we're already redistributing income.

[usma84]

09:33 PM on 10/27/2011

"If the top 1% has most of the money and it doesn't reinvest in this country and are paying historical­­ly low rates in taxes, what is left over for the rest of us?" - nothing and that is the entire point and goal.

The ultimate outcome is one super company for each market, to then be consumed one by the other, with a handfull of ultra-wealthy Oligarchs that decide everything and simply direct the government to do as they wish.

We're 60-70% there. The final end game is the ending of democracy and the Constitution itself. They'll get to that soon enough and it started with Citizens United and declaring companies people.

People forget or perhaps never learned that the Soviet Union *had* a Constitution filled with guaranteed rights, due process of law, equal protection of law, and so forth. They simply ignored it because the Communist Party had all the power and could simply direct who was to be jailed or shot as a dissenter and who was to be rewarded for their obedience.

In time, the same thing is happening here with the system that the Constitution created rotting from within through the power of wealthy individuals and corporations.

Hopefully OWS is a sign that Americans are starting to wake up to the realty that with the bottom *80*% owning only 7% of the wealth, the day when that approaches 0% along with no liberties or voting is approaching and will fight to stop it.

[M Grey]

12:41 AM on 10/28/2011

That was what Engels predicted - that the ultimate end of capitalism was monopolies. Only he failed to predict shifting paradigms like
a) the consumer revolution
b) the information age
c) Anti-trust laws

You speak of the constitution yet OWS refusal to Occupy K St or Washington shows that it probably won't do anything. That and the Soros support.

[bytheC]

08:27 AM on 10/28/2011

Not true. Being exempt from income tax does not mean you’re exempt from federal taxes. Everyone who works is liable for payroll taxes, contributions to Medicare and Social Security that come out of every paycheck. There are also excise taxes on some goods and services, most notably the 18.4 cents per gallon tax on gasoline. The Congressional Budget Office found that earners in the lowest quintile, where most of those with no income tax liability fall, shouldered 4.3 percent of the payroll tax burden and 11.1 percent of the excise taxes. Their effective tax rate (which is calculated by dividing taxes paid by total income) in those categories, according to the CBO, was in fact significantly higher than the rate of the top quintile, although that top one-fifth of the population had a much higher effective tax rate for individual and corporate income taxes.

http://www.factcheck.org/2008/11/americans-paying-no-taxes/

[M Grey]

09:41 AM on 10/28/2011

I said "the bottom 47% pay no federal income tax" That is perfectly in line with tyour article (your article is from '08 - it's grown since then).

The burden is on those of the 53%. The benefit go to the 47%.
Key "everyone who works pays federal taxes" So welfare recipients don't pay income taxes. Since middle and upper class do not receive food stamps or welfare once again the burden is shifted for other taxes to make up the difference. And what of NEGATIVE income tax.
Consider that SS and medicare is capped but more importantly so are benefits. But that tax is goes soley to SS and medicare. Since both programs are running deficits where is the money coming from? All the other taxes.