According to a new study released by Berkley, 23.5% of all income earned in 2007 went to 1% of the US population. The other 76.5% was graciously distributed to the other 99% of us. The top 14,988 richest families saw their income rise by 6.8%. Everyone else’s combined grew 2.8%.
http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2007.pdf
Researchers for this article went on to find that “The possible repeal of the federal tax on large estates in coming years would certainly accelerate the path toward the reconstitution of the great wealth concentration that existed in the U.S. economy before the Great Depression.”
All of this is because “Real income growth for the bottom 99 percent had been very meagre during the Bush expansion starting in 2002. Even including 2007—a good year for ordinary US families-the top percentile captured 65 percent of total real income growth per family from 2002 to 2007”.
The Bush tax breaks. What a win…for 1% of income earners. I guess the “it will create jobs” rhetoric didn’t work out so well huh?
Trickle Down Economic theories = Piss on the Poor.