Linkmeister

How did American incomes get so unequal?

So asks Tim Noah, in a scheduled two-week series of articles which began last Friday. 1915, he writes,

. . . was when the richest 1 percent accounted for 18 percent of the nation's income. Today, the richest 1 percent account for 24 percent of the nation's income. What caused this to happen? Over the next two weeks, I'll try to answer that question by looking at all potential explanations—race, gender, the computer revolution, immigration, trade, government policies, the decline of labor, compensation policies on Wall Street and in executive suites, and education. Then I'll explain why people who say we don't need to worry about income inequality (there aren't many of them) are wrong.

It looks to be quite an interesting series. It's always useful to learn just how you've been shafted, don't you agree?

Here's another provocative paragraph:

During the late 1980s and the late 1990s, the United States experienced two unprecedentedly long periods of sustained economic growth—the "seven fat years" and the " long boom." Yet from 1980 to 2005, more than 80 percent of total increase in Americans' income went to the top 1 percent. Economic growth was more sluggish in the aughts, but the decade saw productivity increase by about 20 percent. Yet virtually none of the increase translated into wage growth at middle and lower incomes, an outcome that left many economists scratching their heads.

Not just economists. At age 29 with my newly-minted Bachelor's degree in hand I started my "career" in 1980 as the Data Processing Manager for a startup health club in Honolulu, making about $12,000 a year. After nine years working there I left in 1989 making all of $22,800 a year.

So much for the boom, huh? I'm sure there are a whole lot of stories like that out there; that one's personal.

Posted by Linkmeister at September 8, 2010 12:01 AM | TrackBack