We keep hearing how well "the economy" is doing (up 3.8% last year) but somehow or other that doesn't seem to translate into our lives, or those of our neighbors.
That's because the gains are going to the rich, the losses are creating even more poor.
And even the business press is starting to notice:
Business Week 08/08/2005 (Story links open in new windows)
"The Rich Get (Much) Richer
"The top 1% take a fatter slice now than at any time since the 1920s
"Hooray for The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal for returning the problems of class in America to the front page. Shame on the rest of us, passive witnesses to the emergence of a second Gilded Age, another Roaring Twenties, in which the fruits of economic success have gone not to the broad populace but to a slim sliver at the top.
"We can debate a lot of economic data but not income inequality. Every serious study shows that the U.S. income gap has become a chasm. Over the past 30 years, the share of income going to the highest-earning Americans has risen steadily to levels not seen since shortly before the Great Depression.
"Economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez calculated [pdf] (using data from the Internal Revenue Service, hardly a hotbed of partisanship) that the share of income going to the top 1% of households nearly doubled, to 14.7% in 2002, up from a low of 7.7% in the early 1970s.
"[T]he share of the top 0.01% — the 13,000 or so households with an average income of $10.8 million in 2002 — has multiplied nearly four times." [Business Week 08/08/2005]
The trend continues and seems to have accelerated since 2000. Here's how another leading business publication describes it:
The Wall Street Journal 08/31/2005
"Recovery Bypasses Many Americans
"Despite Economic Growth, Median Household Income And Wages Fell Last Year"Although the U.S. economy grew robustly last year, the income of the median household slipped a bit, wages of full-time workers fell, the number of Americans living below the poverty line rose and more Americans went without health insurance, the Census Bureau said in its annual report on consumer income.
Continued on the next page Page 1 — Page 2
Article comments
1 - Dave Nalle
I believe that if you look at the actual numbers, broken down by economic sector you'll find that ALL income groups have become richer in the past year, but that the numerical increase is higher in higher income groups because they have a higher base level of wealth in the first place. As I recall the percentage increase is actually highest in the middle income groups.
Dave
2 - John Bill
Thats the Walmart economy for you. Illegals and outsourcing are the real problem. Take drywalling for example, it used pay about $22/hr plus benefits. Now it is mostly illegals doing it and for maybe $10/hr cash no benefits or taxes.
3 - Eric Olsen
Hal's back! Hi Hal, welcome
4 - Dave Nalle
I do have to say that when I had illegals do my drywall they did a better job, cheaper and faster than the anglo guys I had do drywall in my old house.
Dave
5 - Nancy
Dave, you just aren't going to face reality until and unless BushCo makes an official pronouncement on this, are you?
6 - Natalie Davis
If there are real gains, Katrina will take care of them.
7 - Dave Nalle
Nancy, what the hell does Bush have to do with anything? He's achieved near total irrelevancy.
Dave
8 - Nancy
Because you keep mouthing his Little Mary Sunshine bullshit about how the economy is just peachy, we're all doing fine, and completely ignoring information/reality checks like the ABOVE (hint hint - READ IT, dammit) which present data from the most neutral experts available (who know a hell of a lot more about it than you do, altho you won't admit it) that the ONLY ones gaining are the ultra rich and big business. Wake up & smell the coffee grounds ... or the oil slops, more realistically.
9 - Dave Nalle
Nancy, I just read the data and come up with conclusions. It's not hard to do. You could do it to if you had any interest in the truth rather than your ongoing hatefest.
Dave
10 - Hal Pawluk
No, Dave.
Your beliefs have no effect on the facts.
11 - Scott
Nalle: "I believe that if you look at the actual numbers, broken down by economic sector you'll find that ALL income groups have become richer in the past year, but that the numerical increase is higher in higher income groups because they have a higher base level of wealth in the first place. As I recall the percentage increase is actually highest in the middle income groups"
This article says: "Family income stagnated last year and more Americans slipped into poverty, the Census Bureau said Tuesday in a report that raised questions about which Americans were enjoying the fruits of an economic expansion that began in 2001. It was the fourth straight year that the report found an increase in the U.S. poverty rate."
Interesting. Read the data and make the necessary conclusions, I guess.
12 - Dave Nalle
Did you read the part where the increase in the official poverty level more than accounts for the number of people who 'slipped' into poverty?
Dave
13 - Scott
And so, your point is people who "slip" into poverty aren't really in poverty at all?
14 - Dave Nalle
No, my point is that they probably increased slightly in income, but the poverty level also went up.
Dave
15 - Scott
Whatever Dave.
16 - manish
poorman are very high in india