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Related: About this forumIncome Inequality Is at the Highest Level in American History
http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/37779-income-inequality-is-at-the-highest-level-in-american-historyWhile the past two years have been good for the majority of Americans income growth, they still havent fully recovered from the recession. For the bottom 99 percent, incomes fell 11.6 percent during the height of the recession from 2007 to 2009. Afterward, they grew just 7.6 percent between 2009 and 2015 not enough to make up for the downturn. Incomes for the 99 percent have only recovered about 60 percent of what they lost.
But the rich are doing great. The incomes of the 1 percent grew 37 percent between 2009 and 2015. They captured more than half of all the income growth in the country over that period, leaving just 48 percent to spread out among the bottom 99 percent of families.
The top 10 percent of American earners took home more than half of all income last year, the highest share ever except for 2012.
And in fact, income inequality is now at the highest level the country has ever recorded in its entire history. While most data only goes back to the turn of the 20th century, economists Peter Lindert and Jeffrey WIlliamson used tax records, directories, and historical accounts to go back even further. They found that in the countrys earliest post-colonial history, inequality was quite low and much lower than countries across the Atlantic.
As the countrys economy rapidly expanded in the 1800s, inequality rose alongside it. Even so, at the heights of that eras inequality, it never reached the levels we see today.
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Income Inequality Is at the Highest Level in American History (Original Post)
eridani
Jul 2016
OP
Republicans are creating the ILLUSION that the country is going through bad times....
Spitfire of ATJ
Jul 2016
#2
PatrickforO
(14,587 posts)1. Ah, how apropos.
I've finally found a quote I like to put in my signature line, and darned if it doesn't relate quite closely to this rather unsurprising news.
Somehow, I feel.......................prescient!
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)2. Republicans are creating the ILLUSION that the country is going through bad times....
It makes it so workers not only don't expect a raise but it makes the working class feel happy they even HAVE a job.
Sherman A1
(38,958 posts)3. It's been
a new gilded age since the 1980's
Response to eridani (Original post)
rjsquirrel This message was self-deleted by its author.
JEB
(4,748 posts)5. You serfs will eat dog shit and like it. nt