66% of 38 economists polled by AP said Income Inequality was holding back the economy
... this was reported on various web-sites (including CommonDreams) and mentioned here by Judy Lynn but all the articles stated "a majority of" economists said income inequality was holding back the economy. I checked a number of articles to see if I could find out what 'a majority of' meant. Even on the AP site I could not track down hard numbers ( http://bigstory.ap.org/article/ap-survey-us-income-gap-holding-back-economy-0 ) although interestingly enough, other numbers from the survey were specified in the AP article. All the AP article said re the poll participants was: "The AP survey collected the views of private, corporate and academic economists on a range of issues." - but nothing on the actual number surveyed or the numbers on each side of the question re income inequality.
Finally, on Yahoo News I found an article that stated the actual numbers of economists polled and how they answered the question re income inequality and the economy. Mafority could mean 51% which is pretty much evenly split. But 66% is a STRONG majority. Very surprised other websites (like CommonDreams) didn't track that down to emphasize the strength of the attitude on the part of the economists polled.
http://news.yahoo.com/ap-survey-us-income-gap-holding-back-economy-170643637--finance.html
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A key source of the economists' concern: Higher pay and outsize stock market gains are flowing mainly to affluent Americans. Yet these households spend less of their money than do low- and middle-income consumers who make up most of the population but whose pay is barely rising.
"What you want is a broader spending base," says Scott Brown, chief economist at Raymond James, a financial advisory firm. "You want more people spending money."
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The economists forecast that growth will average 2.9 percent in 2014. That would be the healthiest annual pace since 2005.
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— The Obama administration's health care law will make little or no difference to the job market. About two-fifths said the law would cost jobs. None said it would increase hiring.
If anybody else can find out more on this, like who exactly was polled, I would appreciate it. I want to refer to this in comments around the web - (like Corporate- M$M sites and more open political discussion sites, like Politico, or Huffington Post). All the info anybody can find on the poll would be of interest to me.
NOte: the AP article did include the following statement which frankly surprised me as it is very relevant but not something the GOP powerstructure would want mentioned in the article:
"Income inequality has steadily worsened in recent decades, according to government data and academic studies. The most recent census figures show that the average income for the wealthiest 5 percent of U.S. households, adjusted for inflation, has surged 17 percent in the past 20 years. By contrast, average income for the middle 20 percent of households has risen less than 5 percent."
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