That said, I'd like to see some hard numbers regarding ratios of income/wealth broken out in much the same way as the numbers were in the article.
For instance, if the top 5% of americans make 30% of the income of the nation, yet pay 80% of the taxes, that is truely an evil situation. If, however, the top 5% made 80% of the income and payed 80% of the taxes, the situation would still be evil (as income taxes are by definition IMO), but somewhat less so.
Do any freepers on this thread have or have seen such data?
To answer your question in 1999 the
Top 5%:
accounts for 27% of the total family income and
paid 37% of total federal taxes(individual, payroll, corporate, estates etc.)
Top 1%
accounts for 15% of the total family income and
paid 21% of total federal taxes.
Another statistical source more detailed tax, income, expenditure, home ownership etc. information arranged in annual ftp folders for 1984 through 2000 though the narrowest slice is quintile data: