According to a very interesting book review at Slate, Right now the wealthiest one percenters grab 24 percent of annual income in this country. That's even more than the 15 to 18 percent they hauled in during the robber baron era of the Carnegies, Rockefellers and Vanderbilts.
I think that most of us know that the rich are getting richer and everybody else is treading water or getting poorer but I had now idea that the inequality was this severe. The top one percent of the wealthiest people in America make essentially 1/4 of all the income in America. True, the Bush years were very good to the very wealthy, but the trend started way before Bush and it is still going on under that socialist, Obama..
I think that this is a big part of the reason so many people are so angry. I know that I am angry about it.
I’m angry too. Colbert would be happy. I’m surprised too, that more people are not working to reverse the trend.
Here is a great column with interesting ideas of how we’ve gotten ourselves in the pickle we are in:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/03/opinion/03reich.html?_r=1&ref=income_inequality
I think that more people aren’t working to reverse the trend because they – somehow – believe it is going to change by itself. As soon as they get a new job that pays better. As the article you referenced – thanks, BTW – says “for years American families kept spending as if their incomes were keeping pace with overall economic growth” so nobody was worried.
When they lost their jobs, people thought they would get new jobs very quickly, but now they are beginning to realize they won’t. In the meanwhile, the rich are getting bigger bonuses.