I love this bandwagon. The communists are about again. The economy isn't in stasis and all economic locals are not the same. These numbers tell you absolutely nothing about what is really going on or even that something is wrong. I do think executives are overpaid but in a free nation their wages are determined by the companies that employ them. Wages are not set in a vacuum. Negotiations take place and since these "guys" are often master negotiators they reap the benefits of their positions.
I think entertainers are paid too much also but as long as they aren't being paid out of the tax payers coffers then why should I care? If the people at the bottom were to worry more about making themselves a valuable commodity rather than getting drunk on themselves as human beings they'd move up the ladder faster. It is frustrating and there are a lot of unnecessary barriers to success but that is life and you can either wait for someone to lift you over those barriers or you can go around them and over them any way you can.
I'd like to see it estimated how many people are employed or receive benefit from those in the top 20%. Quoting averages makes it appear to the layman that those in that economic bracket got there in some nefarious way. That the top 20% pay 80% of taxes, well we don't need to go there.
The Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis took a longer perspective in the August issue of its "National Economic Trends." Michael Pakko used a graph to show that, "labor's share of income has averaged 70.5 percent (of national income) over the past 50 years and has remained within a narrow range of that average."
Real wages for all workers have been increasing regardless of what their portion of the national income may or may not be. The fact that CEO income has been increasing tells us only that there is a supply issue. Must be a tough and demanding job.
I'm a Republican who believes that conservatives SHOULD be concerned about income disparity, and I also believe that the 1990s were terrible for growing disparity, but this report says NOTHING! But what does this data show? That households were less likely to have multiple incomes, as single-parent households and never-marrieds became more prevalent? That massive numbers of low-income, illegal immigrants have weighed down the median incomes of the lower middle classes?
And if there is a problem, whose policies should be blamed? Reagan's conservativism? Clinton's liberalism? Bush's wishy-washiness?
That the 2nd tier (20-40%) held steady seems to disprove to me the notion that there was a crisis with a growing economic oligarchy. That the amount of wealth has grown so much since 1985 certainly disproves the notion that the lower 60% have seen their conditions worsen.
Were it not for illegal immigration the bottom 20% would also be growing at the same rate as the top 20%. But having a labor pool of 10 million people who are willing to work at sub-minimum wages, often substantially so, means the rate of the bottom 20% is somewhat distorted.
What’s happening today is that many parents increasingly see their children as having a more uncertain future than their own, and that see this difference in likely success as an increasing gap between the very affluent and themselves - for example that their children will have a more difficult time attending college and will graduate deeply in debt, that they will be at greater risk of financial ruin because of uninsured illness, and the like.
And IMO, conservatives ignore there real (and sometimes realistic) concern at their electoral peril - no blizzard of statistics will change the fact that such voters (many of whom identify themselves as “middle class”) increasingly look forward to the prospect of their children graduating from a second tier college (the best they can afford) tens of thousands of dollars in debt just to obtain the diploma that’s a basic requirement to even be considered for most jobs with a reasonable prospect of financial independence. Or that even if they land the job, they will be reliant on their employers for access to affordable health insurance. The proof of this is in the "unwillingness" of such voters to accept the argument that objectively they are doing well.
IMO the important political fight over these issues is not going to be between the people who want the Government to do less and those who want it to do more – as the recent behavior of both partiers demonstrates that’s already a forgone conclusion - it’s going to be between those who want the government to improve equality of opportunity (for example, by improving access to education, or by providing affordable insurance against catastrophic illness to the self employed) and those who want to improve equality of result by direct transfer payments of various sorts.
There’s a lot of room for conservative influence on the direction of America in that debate, but not if conservatives just say “work harder ‘cause everybody is getting what they deserve” in an economy where it’s increasingly hard for many hard-working families to get and stay ahead.
Did they take nontaxable income into consideration?
Or does grandma's social security check not factor into their equasion.
Take out Illegals and Single Mothers and the income distribution looks much different.
It is also skewed, vis-a-vis quips from college professors, government workers, and ex-government workers. The class warfare, MARXIST codswallop, that permeates the whole article, which yes, I read in its entirety. Also missing, are the facts that there are more self-made millionaires and billionaires today, than every before, that more everyday people are invested in the market ( there goes that specious quote from the mordant idiot in this article, who claimed that only the VERY rich can take advantage of being in the market )than at any other point in time of the history of mankind, and that the so called "poor" live better today, than than the middle of the middle class did in the 1960s.
"MINORITIES AND WOMEN HIT HARDEST".
Reminds me of a newbie helper once when he was complaining that he did all the work and the crafstman was making twice what he was. I told him it was not my fault he hired in wrong.
I am sure the tax cuts had nothing to do with it..
I think there is a gap in the work ethic.
I know people that sit and do NOTHING all day. They get their check from the govt. for 600-1000 per month, food stamps, discounted rent, rent rebates, free dental care, prescriptions, heating assistance, free food baskets, free eye glasses and free or greatly reduced transportation, free clothes as well as other freebies like furniture. They don't even have to pay their own bills. Someone else will do that for them for free. All for doing nothing at all. Life is good in America!
Class warfare alert.
Gol Darn them thar rich peepel! Da-Arna keepin me down by taken all that thar money! I hates them ! I Do!
I got a gap in my income.