According to the Center on Budget Policy Priorities:
Average pre-tax incomes in 2006 jumped by about $60,000 (5.8 percent) for the top 1 percent of households, but just $430 (1.4 percent) for the bottom 90 percent, after adjusting for inflation, according to a new update in the groundbreaking series on income inequality by economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez. Their analysis of newly released IRS data shows that in 2006, the shares of the nation’s income flowing to the top 1 percent and top 0.1 percent of households were higher than in any year since 1928.
Note that the latest data available is from 2006.
Notice the point (in the above chart) at which the top 1% began to earn a greater share of the total pie for the first time after the Great Depression… the early 1980′s. Know what else occurred in the early 1980′s? Financial professionals began to earn a SIZABLE relative share of national income while all other wages were stagnant.
Thus began a 25+ year run in which financial professionals and the powerful elite both had a huge incentive to keep the financial bubble going. The financial professionals earned their commission, while the elite had outsized gains on their capital. As the NY Times states:
The gains for the richest took place amid a booming economy, in which hedge funds and private equity firms blossomed and the subprime lending machine went into high gear.
But what really makes the ultrawealthy so fortunate, what truly separates this moment from a run-of-the-mill Gilded Age, is the unprecedented protection
German
Spanish
French
Italian
Portuguese
Japanese
Korean
Russian
Chinese
Philip R. Davis is a founder Phil's Stock World, a stock and options trading site that teaches the art of options trading to newcomers and devises advanced strategies for expert traders...
Ilene is editor and affiliate program
coordinator for PSW.
