Friday, August 14, 2009

And You Can See How Great That Is For The Economy

Income inequality in the United States is at an all-time high, surpassing even levels seen during the Great Depression, according to a recently updated paper by University of California, Berkeley Professor Emmanuel Saez. The paper, which covers data through 2007, points to a staggering, unprecedented disparity in American incomes. On his blog, Nobel prize-winning economist and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called the numbers "truly amazing."

Though income inequality has been growing for some time, the paper paints a stark, disturbing portrait of wealth distribution in America. Saez calculates that in 2007 the top .01 percent of American earners took home 6 percent of total U.S. wages, a figure that has nearly doubled since 2000.

As of 2007, the top decile of American earners, Saez writes, pulled in 49.7 percent of total wages, a level that's "higher than any other year since 1917 and even surpasses 1928, the peak of stock market bubble in the 'roaring" 1920s.'"
Which is not to say that we shouldn't keep cutting their taxes, of course.

2 comments:

Publius said...

Dude you just said Berkeley "professor" and Paul Krugeman and seriously used them as real sources of truth!!!

I'd sooner believe that we never landed on the moon than take anything a commie from Berkeley or an idiot "economist" from the New York Times has to say as truth!

piker62 said...

Try reading the thing without the sentence including Krugman and then tell me what you think.