Census finds record gap between US rich and poor

[Judi Lynn]

Source: Associated Press

Census finds record gap between US rich and poor
Hope Yen, The Associated Press, Washington | Tue, 09/28/2010 1:13 PM

The income gap between the richest and poorest Americans grew last year to its widest amount on record as young adults and children in particular struggled to stay afloat in the recession.

The top-earning 20 percent of Americans - those making more than $100,000 each year - received 49.4 percent of all income generated in the U.S., compared with the 3.4 percent earned by those below the poverty line, according to newly released census figures. That ratio of 14.5 was an increase from 13.6 in 2008 and nearly double a low of 7.69 in 1968.

A different measure, the international Gini index, found U.S. income inequality at its highest level since the Census Bureau began tracking household income in 1967. The U.S. also has the greatest disparity among Western industrialized nations.

At the top, the wealthiest 5 percent of Americans who earn more than $180,000 added slightly to their annual incomes last year, census data show. Families at the $50,000 median level slipped lower.




Read more: http://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2010/09/28/census-finds-record-gap-between-us-rich-and-poor.html

[LoZoccolo]

1. This gives us a good argument against supply-side economics.

The top earners have more money than ever, and more money relative to everyone else than ever, and yet there is still high unemployment. The people who are allowed to keep the money do not necessarily invest it in businesses which create jobs, as we see here.

[Sherman A1]

3. Oh, no we need more trickle down......

more tax cuts for the wealthy, etc :sarcasm:

We haven't made it back to the standards of the Gilded Age just yet.

There is more work to DO!!!!!

[Rex]

2. Welcome to America kids!

Believe the grown ups at your own peril.

[Amonester]

4. Now, stop whinning and GOTV!

So nothing will be done to change that "direction" too, because corporatists rule!


(This reply is to the article, Judy, not to you, of course.) ;)

[panzerfaust]

5. "Mission Accomplished"

(To be used as pro-terrorist propaganda by Democrats.)

Oh, and thanks to the bats at http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2007/05/traitors_seize.html for the pix.

[spinbaby]

6. 20% of Americans make over $100,000 each year?

I find that hard to believe. I know maybe three people in that category.

[pampango]

7. "That richest 1 percent account for 24 percent of the nation's total income, the highest share since

1928, right before the Great Depression. That's nearly triple their 9 percent share in the 1970s."

http://www.philly.com/dailynews/opinion/20100917_The_Poverty_Census__The_poor_get_poorer___the_rich_get_richer.html

As author Timothy Noah points out, between 1980 and 2005, about 80 percent of the increase in total U.S. income went to the top 1 percent of Americans - that is, those who make more than $380,000 a year. (Noah is examining income inequality in a 10-part series on Slate.com.)

For the first time in generations, Americans can no longer expect that their children will do better than they will. Workers earning the median wage in 2007 are making less, adjusted for inflation, than workers earning the median wage 30 years ago. Whether you believe it or not, a struggling middle class affects everyone. It's the middle class' purchases of goods and services that power the U.S. economy. If the middle class doesn't have the money to spend, the economy will stay where it is: moribund.

FOR DECADES NOW, the plight of the poor has evoked not empathy but contempt from many ordinary Americans, who have identified more with the "haves" than the "have nots." Apparently, they believed that, with hard work, anyone can strike it rich in America. The opposite is true. But without a reversal of the widening income gap, they simply can't get there from here.

[maryf]

8. K&R nt