Posted on 04/02/2015 11:38:52 PM PDT by 9thLife
Washington (AFP) - Most Americans' incomes continued to fall last year, but the richest 20 percent saw theirs rise, a new Labor Department report showed Thursday.
The average pre-tax income fell 0.9 percent from the same period a year earlier, to $64,432.
But broken down into quintiles, those in the top 20 percent of incomes saw their money stream grow by 0.9 percent to $166,048 on average.
Every other group lost ground, with the bottom 20 percent losing the most: their average income dropped 3.5 percent to $9,818.
Those losses came despite an economy that was picking up pace and generating well over 200,000 jobs a month last year.
While the majority of incomes fell, consumer spending, which accounts for about two-thirds of US economic activity, rose 1.0 percent on average.
The largest increase was an 11.3 percent rise in healthcare spending, which has climbed every year since 1996, to an average of $3,919.
Housing expenditures rose 2.0 percent to $17,377.
The new data added further evidence of the widening disparity between the rich and the rest of Americans, an issue that is stirring growing concerns as the economy strains to recover from the Great Recession caused in part by Wall Street excesses.
Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen repeatedly has raised the issue.
On Thursday, at a Fed conference on economic and social mobility in Washington, Yellen emphasized that "roughly 80 percent of Americans across the ideological spectrum see inequality as a moderately big or very big problem," according to her prepared remarks.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Oh boy, what a surprise...As if the corrupt dept of labor didn't see this trend years ago..
Eeeeeeeeeeeevil rich people. They don’t spend their money on goods and services to avoid employing people. They don’t invest their money for fear it might lower the cost of capital for the peon masses. They just count their money, over and over, sometimes they burn it for fun.
Government people are paid some of the highet salaries out there. Then figur in the paid for benefits.
Not military so much but the civilian drones.
That's how a corrupt out of control government stays in power. Keep the entitled elite and the gov workers who run things very satisfied. Those well-off gov workers aren't going to do anything to risk those easy, stable jobs. Frighten, isolate, entertain, and diminish the other 75% (or so) of the population.
It works until it collapses or it's brought down by war.
Government people are paid some of the highest salaries out there.....And they don’t have to pay income taxes.
I’ve just googled, and the median income in the US is $52K at the moment. I made more than that in bonuses this year and have two more to come.
What the US needs is not a “level playing field” but more opportunity. Get government out of the way. Anyone can do what I do with a bit of effort.
Can I hear a bullsh##!!!!!! stoking the fires of the “rich” who are old white male conservatives we all assume. You mean to tell me that dodd frank new regulations on wallstreet didnt work ? or was it put in place so they can skimm off the top and get thier vig. bullsh## all bullsh##
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