Welcome to the 1% Recovery-"the top 1% captured 93% of the income gains in first year of recovery"

[kpete]

Welcome to the 1% Recovery
MAR 5, 2012
Mike Konczal

As the 1% reap 93 percent of the income gains from the recovery, we're rapidly returning to pre-New Deal levels of inequality.

There was a brief debate focused on the following question: would the gains of the economy continue to accrue to the top 1% once the recovery started, or would they have a weak post-recession showing in terms of raw income growth as well as income share of the economy? The top 1% had a rough Great Recession. They absorbed 50 percent of the income losses, and their share of income dropped from 23.5 percent to 18.1 percent. Was this a new state of affairs, or would the 1% bounce back in 2010?

We finally have the estimated data for 2010 by income percentile, and it turns out that the top 1% had a fantastic year. The data is in the World Top Income Database, as well as Emmanuel Saez’s updated "Striking it Richer: The Evolution of Top Incomes in the United States" (as well as the excel spreadsheet on his webpage). Timothy Noah has a first set of responses here. The takeaway quote from Saez is, "the top 1% captured 93% of the income gains in the first year of recovery.”

First off, let’s get some absolute numbers here. Here is income by important percentiles, as well as the change from 2009-2010. I include the change with and without capital gains to make it clear that this is a phenomenon both in and independent of a strong stock market:

?w=450

WOW, lots more:
http://www.nextnewdeal.net/rortybomb/welcome-1-recovery
http://rooseveltinstitute.org/99-plan-progressive-vision-america-needs

[progressoid]

1. Not to worry. That'll be trickling down to us any day now.

The bailouts worked!

[pinboy3niner]

7. Wear your pith helmet

Darn lithp!

[Initech]

2. When are we going to establish greed as an addiction??

The upper 1% are absolutely fucking addicted to their money ) and they act just like addicts - there's no such thing as too much for them and they have zero fucking clue that what they are doing is wrong in their quest to get more. Every time news like this breaks it's always more for them less for us and I think this is the way to break that cycle.

[fascisthunter]

3. I'm So Tired of the Bullshit

[Zorra]

4. OCCUPY! nt

[WillyT]

5. K & R !!!

[bvar22]

6. All according to plan, my pretties.

All according to The Plan.


You will know them by their WORKS,
not by their excuses.
[font size=5 color=green]Solidarity99![/font][font size=2 color=green]
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[xchrom]

8. Du rec. Nt

[Rex]

9. They take care of the next lower layer

and so on. They meant trickle down from billionaires to millionaires. Working poor do other things. They get nothing.

[Egalitarian Thug]

10. Oh no, this must be a mistake. I'm assured that we have recovered all the jobs lost

in the Great Robbery and Collapse by a very reliable source. So you see, this just has to be wrong.

K&R