Friday, September 23, 2011

Inequality

Paul Krugman offers data in the New York Times 9/23/2011
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/23/opinion/krugman-the-social-contract.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha212

"Detailed estimates from the Congressional Budget Office — which only go up to 2005, but the basic picture surely hasn’t changed — show that between 1979 and 2005 the inflation-adjusted income of families in the middle of the income distribution rose 21 percent. That’s growth, but it’s slow, especially compared with the 100 percent rise in median income over a generation after World War II.

"Meanwhile, over the same period, the income of the very rich, the top 100th of 1 percent of the income distribution, rose by 480 percent. No, that isn’t a misprint. In 2005 dollars, the average annual income of that group rose from $4.2 million to $24.3 million.

"So do the wealthy look to you like the victims of class warfare?

"....According to new estimates by the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center, one-fourth of those with incomes of more than $1 million a year pay income and payroll tax of 12.6 percent of their income or less, putting their tax burden below that of many in the middle class..."

SEE ALSO
http://motherjones.com/politics/2011/02/income-inequality-in-america-chart-graph

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