The richest one percent of Americans earned a postwar record of 21.2 percent of all income in 2005, up from 19 percent a year earlier, reflecting a widening income disparity among different classes in the nation, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing new Internal Revenue Service data.
The data showed that the fortunes of the bottom 50 percent of Americans are worsening, with that group earning 12.8 percent of all income in 2005, down from 13.4 percent the year before, the paper said.
I host a daily public affairs radio show in San Francisco called Your Call. It airs from 11 am - noon PST on KALW 91.7 FM. I am also happy to report that I recently got a book deal with PoliPoint Press to write about my road trip through the heartland and the interviews I did with people about why they vote the way they do (or not). It's scheduled to be out in September.
Saturday, October 13, 2007
IRS Report: Gap between rich and poor continues to widen
Politicians and those who've "made it" love saying that people who work hard will reap the benefits of capitalism, thereby implying that those at the bottom aren't working hard enough. This is Capitalist America:
Unfortunately, capitalism isn't going anywhere.
ReplyDeleteThe Third Chimpanzee
A bit of regulation would be nice, though, eh?
Having just spent some time in China, I'll take good old American capitalism any day.
ReplyDeleteI couldn't count the number of times I heard the Chinese talk about their "American dream" (to live in America).