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US Income Disparity, Economic Anxiety Grow: Studies
WASHINGTON — Income for the richest Americans has grown 15 times faster than for the poor since 1979, a government study showed, as a poll out Wednesday highlighted deep anxiety over uneven wealth distribution a year ahead of US elections.
Household income for top 1% more than triples, while middle-class incomes grow by less than 40%. (AFP/Getty) The income disparity, and concentration of more than 80 percent of US income wealth in the top 20 percent of earners, highlights the volatility in the race for the White House as President Barack Obama's Republican challengers push plans to reduce taxes for the wealthy as a way to prime the sluggish economy.
From 1979 to 2007, the wealthiest one percent of Americans more than doubled their share of the nation's income, from nearly eight percent to 17 percent, the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office said in a report released Tuesday.
"Income after transfers and federal taxes for households at the higher end of the income scale rose much more rapidly than income for households in the middle and at the lower end of the income scale," it said.
Government policy over the years has become less redistributive, and "the equalizing effect of transfers and taxes on household income was smaller in 2007 than it had been in 1979," the CBO added.
For the wealthiest one percent of the population, average after-tax household income grew by 275 percent during the period, compared with just 18 percent for the poorest 20 percent.
It was also a far greater increase than for the six tenths of the population in the middle of the income scale, who saw their average after-tax income grow by just under 40 percent during the same period.
Meanwhile a new poll by The New York Times and CBS News found that the vast majority of Americans fear a stagnation or deterioration of the economy, and showed that two thirds of the public believe US wealth should be distributed more evenly.
And in a critique of Obama as he attempts to position himself as the candidate best-placed to improve the status of the nation's working class, 28 percent of poll respondents said his policies favor the rich, compared with 23 percent saying they favor the middle class and 17 percent saying they favor the poor.
By contrast, 69 percent of respondents said Republican policies favor the rich, nine percent said they favor the middle class and two percent said they favor the poor.
The October 19-24 telephone poll of 1,650 adults had a three percent margin of error.
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38 Comments so far
Show AllI feel constrained to point out the sloppiness in the headline on the CD home page. The story says that income of the top 1% rose by 275%, not the wealth, which is what the home page headline suggests. Income is how much you earn a year. Wealth is how much you've got in the bank, among various holdings, real estate, your various possessions,etc.
The difference matters-- for instance, there are proposals to tax wealth, as opposed to income.
Your mean _compelled_ to point out...
Of course, wealth comparisons show far worse inequality than income comparisons. Many workers have zero or negative net worth. This is especiallt the case for minorities.
"Meanwhile a new poll by The New York Times and CBS News found that the vast majority of Americans fear a stagnation or deterioration of the economy, and showed that two thirds of the public believe US wealth should be distributed more evenly." Is one to assume from this survey that the overwhelming majority of US citizens are longing to embrace communism? You may wish to start with Socialism first just to get a feel for it. Seems to be working pretty good here. Just saying...
Ya really think so? Not sure that Prime Minister Harper would agree with you. In fact he seems to be striving mightily to abolish as much of your "socialism" as possible in favor of capitalism's U.S. corporatist variant.
Good luck hanging on to what you've got left.
The banksters will not stop until they fully control every government on the planet.
OWS's rapid expansion to venues around the world proves that progressives around the world are no longer denying this fact.
OWS, however will be successful only when many more working class and poor people stop fearing and demonizing socialism and communism. Even if you don't want to live in a socialist nation, you need to vote for leftists or there is no hope that the extreme right wing that controls politics in the US and so many other nations will be thwarted.
Not only do working class and poor people need to stop fearing and demonizing socialism and communism, they need to get over the idea of voting for the lesser evil.
All the things the occupy groups are protesting are the result of the bipartisan work of the Democrats and the Republicans together to help the rich get richer which results in the rest of us losing our standard of living. We must understand that those people in Congress that swore to uphold the Constitution are not doing it. These corrupt people are not heeding their constituents but are voting in the interests of their contributors. In other words, they have accepted bribes and are acting as their bosses want them to---and they have no concern for the working people of this nation. Knowing that, I hope you will not keep them in Congress. We must replace the corrupt with people with morals and ethics and that have a commitment to vote in the interests of the people who live in their district.
Isn't Quan a leftist (so-called socialist)? Maybe OWS should consider electing their own reps from their general assemblies, and appoint their own judges & juries & marshals, and issue their own warrants-for-arrest for corrupt cops, mayors, CEO corporate suits, etc... And maybe the aggrieved veterans in the movement will agree to be deputized to bring in the named criminals. This would be, initially, a theoretical exercise, but when this MINDSET is in place, in the minds of the common people, THEN the people will have won back their democratic republic, and THEIR nation (this land is my land,...). It's becoming clear that the sitting authorities, officials, judges, etc... aren't interested in democratic republicanism, or the general welfare of the people.
What a bizarre and misinformed statement. So, desiring CEO pay, to be something less than 343 times median worker pay, (like say 15 to 30 like it is in Japan or Germany) and doing it through redistributive tax policy is "communist"???
Thanks for pointing this out and would add that these people really need to define socialism and communism at least in their minds and then used these terms correctly. Probably is and has not been a true socialized and communist country for a long time but many forms just like our unregulated capitalistic system we've been operating on for the last 3 decades which is destroying the American economny, middle class, and the world's middle class and transferring all the wealth to a few and then some.
The guy who made this comment seems to be a victim of the twin zeitgeists of Annie Rand and Ronnie Raygun who are stalking Canada right now.
But to correct myself, based on informal research of blogger here:
http://www.ceo.com/media_type/blogs/check-out-these-ceo-pay-ratios-between-countries/
here are some CEO:worker pay ratios:
Japan 11:1
Germany 12:1
France 15:1
Italy 15:1
Canada 20:1
South Africa 21:1
UK 22:1
Mexico 47:1
Venezuela (under the "communist" Chavez) 50:1
USA 475:1 (correct latest number is 343:1)
Thanks for the list
However one must ask is that in any company there is but 1 CEO and many "workers". Maybe a better metric may be the total compensation of the board in salary, stocks etc etc and how much tax is paid on the total compensation and compare that to the salaries wages and taxes paid by all the rest.
The best metric is a per-capita one, not aggregate. Obviously, in a large firm, the aggregate compensation of the whole board is going to be some small fraction of the aggregate payroll expenses of the thousands of times larger larger employee workforce. But such a number tells us nothing useful. We are individuals, not aggregates.
By the way, is your nick related to the famous coal mine waste-pile disaster (buried a school) that happened in Aberfan, Wales?
Yes.
It was that or Gresford.
Sairad Cymraeg?
I work for US MSHA in a division that reviews coal waste dam plans, and we always refer to the much studied 1966 disaster as "Aberfan". (I'll look those other Welsh towns up). But the US government only started regulating coal waste dams and piles after the comparably deadly but much less reported in the US (in accordance with Herman-Chomsky propaganda theory) 1972 disaster in Buffalo Creek, West Virginia.
---------------------------------------------------
Edit:
Oh... looked them up; the first town was the scene of the 1934 mine disaster (methane/coal dust explosion) and the latter "town" is Welsh for "Do you speak Welsh". Got me!
The global monetary systems will eventually collapse with all the corruption that still exists in finance and government. There's not enough will power or intelligence among them to fix what their greed has already destroyed. .......The monetary system is on life-support, and its energy supply is running out. .......“The Economic Policy Institute has estimated that KORUS (Free Trade Agreement) will cost the U.S. 159,000 jobs in the first seven years alone, and has predicted that it will also INCREASE our trade deficit.” ......Prepare for the worst and hope for the best!........The day of reckoning is closer than any of us would like to believe.
http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/10/26/us-cybersecurity-banks-idUSTRE79P5E020111026
"By contrast, 69 percent of respondents said Republican policies favor the rich, nine percent said they favor the middle class and two percent said they favor the poor."
Who the heck are those two percent?
Members of the 1%.
Lol
Lol
LOL ... and bingo!
End taxation. Cap net worth.
Direct democracy
How are you going to cap net worth except by taxation?
By periodic or yearly referendum.
Explanation, ezeflyer?
A natural precedent dictates that no organism shall own or control more resources than what it can personally defend. Money has enabled a tiny fraction of 1% to accumulate endless power and resources to the detriment of the 99% whom they enslave.
Them with the gold makes the rules and that includes the tax laws. The 99% could make the tax laws direct democratically by initiative and referendum, or it could simply have a yearly referendum to determine the wealth/power any person should be allowed to possess. A wealth cap to end undemocratic wealth/power concentration.
Personal net worth excesses would be given away to other people by the bearer but not to government or organizations of any kind. Wealth would eventually be distributed much more equitably to the entire population. And infrastructure and services would be paid for by the people who use them, in a decentralized way.
So in other words, a condesending charity-ocracy. And the "infrastructrue and services paid for by the people who use them" is right out of the Ayn Rand/Ron Paul playbook...
"69 percent of respondents said Republican policies favor the rich, nine percent said they favor the middle class and two percent said they favor the poor."
So: why the hell do so many Republicans keep getting elected? Are their voter suppression efforts really THAT effective, or do most Americans just not bother to vote, and not bother to protest, and not bother to call B.S. by its appropriate name whenever they hear that B.S. regurgitated by candidates, by self-proclaimed pundits, and by the lapdog news media?
There seems to be a weird and deep disconnect between what Americans KNOW, in their hearts, and what they WISH were true when election-time rolls around. We need to abandon wishful thinking and start telling our "leaders" to get with the program or get the heck out of the way.
Gods, Guns and Gays
That's why they keep getting elected.
Oh, and that most people are really bad at maths, logic and can't tell the difference between a hypothesis and theory.
About which I have a theory, which is mine.
Making these comparisons in percentage terms grossly understates the actual changes involved.
Why do none of the articles citing this study report the *absolute* changes in annual incomes for these income groups.
The absolute dollar growth of the 1% would be a helluva lot more than 15 times the absolute dollar growth of the lowest quintile!
BECAUSE, folks, the top 1% share their booty with the politicians (in political bribes), while the middle class has no booty to share. Only public funding of campaigns fill reverse our demise.
Jack Lohman
http://moneyedPoliticians.net
I wonder how politicians like Mitt Romney have prospered under Reagans "new" economy.
The truth is people can make money off from their money and not pay income tax but instead pay capital gains tax which is a very low tax rate, people that actually work for a living pay income tax at a much higher rate at least that was the way it was explained to me. I do feel very taken advantage of by wall street and the wealthy even though I worked about 50 years and retired, I worked in construction and my body would not be able to work any longer, not till 70, like the republicans want, thank god and the democrats for social security.
US Individual Income Tax System: Of, By, and For the Filthy Rich
A Tax Code that Engorges the Few to the Detriment of the Many
By John M. Bachar, Jr.
This is an exhaustive analysis of the US Individual Income Tax System based on the data in 2,053,933,938 individual income tax returns filed for the 16 year period, 1993-2008, the 140,532,115 returns filed for 2009 (preliminary data), and the 400 individual income tax returns reporting the highest adjusted gross incomes (AGI’s). It shows how the tax code enables the highest income groups to acquire, at ever-accelerating speed, exorbitantly excessive incomes, the majority of which are unearned, and how it is the root cause for the shamefully puny tax collections that, for decades, has resulted in the severe reduction or elimination of a huge number of essential services for an overwhelming majority of struggling Americans.
The analysis derives a close approximation to “gross income”, which is required to be reported on all tax returns according to the US tax code (TITLE 26--INTERNAL REVENUE CODE). The IRS (Internal Revenue Service) does NOT keep a record of gross income for all tax returns filed for any year.
Some of the most egregious examples of inequities are given that are caused by the dysfunctional tax code. These intolerable inequities scream out for major revisions of the code.
A proposed tax rate schedule on gross income for the various percentile groups is given. It shows that if it were applied to the tax returns for the 16 year period, 1993-2008, then an additional $18.9 trillion in tax revenue would have been collected, and the current (October 12, 2011) debt of $14.86 trillion would now be a SURPLUS of $4.04 trillion! The proposed tax rates are listed in the form, “(percentile group; rate)”: (0-20; 2%); (20-40; 5%);
(40-60; 8%); (60-80; 12%); (80-90; 15%); (90-95; 20%); (95-99; 30%); (99-99.9; 50%); (99.9-99.995; 60%);
(99.995-100; 70%).
For easy comprehension, there are 44 Tables and 9 Graphs.
Download and read the full analysis by clicking on:
http://www.absentlinks.com/uploads/6/6/4/2/6642350/us_individual_income_tax_system___of_by_and_for_the_filthy_rich.pdf
See “A Modest Proposal: The 1% Solution?” at Open Salon.com http://open.salon.com/blog/f_arouete/2011/10/25/a_modest_proposal_the_1_solution
It's pretty obvious that the those at the top have done a pretty good job over the last 30 years at using their wealth to influence tax policy and shift the tax burden off of them onto labor and industry.
This a systematic effort to destroy the middleclass in this country and redistribute their combined wealth to the top.
This is the direct & deliberate result of allowing money to be spent on influencing voters.
Welcome to third world America!