The Top .01 Percent Reach New Heights

[n2doc]

While this week’s inequality numbers have gotten a lot of attention, Paul Krugman points out an interesting corollary: not only are the top 10 percent taking home nearly half of the country's income, and the top 1 percent taking their largest share since 1928, but the top .01 percent have climbed to even more staggering highs.

Paul Krugman correctly notes that the dominance of this highest income group, the .01 percent, is the biggest story in Saez numbers. He cites the chart below to show their change during from 1979-2012, the period in which inequality really took off:

Krugman writes:

Of the gains made by the top 10 percent, almost none went to the 90-95 group; in fact, the great bulk went to the top 1 percent. The bulk of the gains of the top 1, in turn, went to the top 0.1; and the bulk of those gains went to the top 0.01.

What he fails to mention is that the story is even more remarkable over the entire 20th century. After a steady rise from 1978 on, the top .01 percent of earners made nearly five percent of the national income in 2012.



That’s just 16,000 Americans that make over ten million dollars a year. And their dominance is strengthening: the share of income controlled by that tiny group of people jumped over a percentage point from 3.7 percent in 2011 to 4.8 percent in 2012. This is the donor class, the same group of people that donate to political campaigns and determine the structure of the market they have so clearly mastered.

more
http://www.demos.org/blog/9/13/13/top-01-percent-reach-new-heights

[Octafish]

1. That's a lot of lettuce.

Weird how little trickled down to the lower orders, as promised 33 years ago.

[bvar22]

2. This does NOT happen by accident.

It is the result of carefully planned and implemented Economic Policy.
It requires careful preparation, marketing, buying the right politicians, message control, courts packed with Conservative Corporate Rights Judges, and the marginalization and suppression of any opposition.

When the Working Class & The Poor realize WE have more in common with each other
than we have in common with the Rich 1% Ruling Class and their Mouth Pieces in Washington,
THEN we can have "change".


You will know them by their [font size=3]WORKS.[/font]

[indepat]

3. When the gipper took office, the .01%'s share of income was less than 1%, but is now near

5% and is on a sharply upward spiral. Way to go gipper, GHWB, WJC, junior, BHO, the FED, Congress, and the felonious ones on the SC. Your fiscal and tax policies, trade agreements, Wall Street bailout, anti-labor bias, and shameful minimum wage have all contributed to the bludgeoning of the middle class and misery of much of the 99% while keeping the MIC and fat cats gorged.