What Recovery? You Probably Became Poorer In the Last 10 Years
http://www.alternet.org/economy/what-recovery-you-probably-became-poorer-last-10-years
You sense it when you look at your retirement account. You feel it when the bills come in. According to new research supported by the Russell Sage Foundation, your instinct is right: you are very likely getting poorer.
For the study, researchers gathered information on families in the middle of the wealth distribution continuum. What they found is that in 2003, the inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical household was $87,992. Fast-forward 10 years: that figure is down to a mere $56,335.
Ordinary Americans got 36 percent poorer in just a decade.
The Great Recession and the bursting of the housing bubble did their damage, but a long list of additional factors have helped funnel money out of the hands of regular Americans and into the pockets of the rich, including deregulation, high unemployment and job insecurity, the shareholder value trend in which corporations focus on manipulating stock prices while throwing workers under the bus, the reduced influence of unions, the shredding of the social safety net, privatization, and tax structures which favor the rich.
And once the inequality train leaves the station, it only gathers speed until something stops it. As Thomas Piketty has recently emphasized, the rich get richer faster than you and me because of the rate of return on their wealth.
= new reply since forum marked as read
And it could just be me, the oddball exception to the trend.
Funny though, because I spent much of that decade in the bottom quintile for income. The last three years, I have perhaps risen to the 37th percentile for income, but that still leaves over 60% of households making more money than I do.
Let me look at two censuses of wealth that I have seen and saved to my computer, for 2002 and 2011. Not quite the same years, but things were better in 2011 than they were in 2009 on the job front and they have only gotten better since then.
So - 110 million households in 2002
16.9% with zero or negative net worth
9.3% with less than $5,000
11.1% with over $250,000 (not including the next group)
8.5% with over $500,000
118.7 million households in 2011
18.1% with zero or negative
9.1% with less than $5,000
so the bottom has increased by 1%
12.6% with over $250,000
13.5% with over $500,000
so the top has increased by 6.5%
some of that perhaps because of inflation as $250,000 in 2011 was only equivalent of $200,000 in 2002, or going the other way $250,000 in 2002 is equivalent to $312,000 in 2011.
Looking at the middle, in 2002 12.9% had over 50K but less than 100, and 20.3% had between $100,000 and $250,000
In 2011, 10.4% had over 50K and 17.9% had between 100 and 250.
So there's quite a bit of slippage there, especially if you take inflation into account. A loss of 4.9%. But that loss is stil less than the 6.5% who moved into the top two groups.
And for the lower middle groups
5-10 - 4.8% to 4.8%
10-25 - 7.6% to 6.6%
25-50 - 8.5% to 6.9%
So, except for the growth at the top (the top 26% though and not so much the top 0.01% some people like to talk about) I am seeing slippage from 2002 to 2011.
Mind-boggling to me, because since 2002, I have only worked full time 5 years out of the 12, and I have added about $70,000 to my net worth.
I must be one of the few who is not blowing all my money on tattoos 
