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Economic Policy Institute
A new graphic from Economic Policy Institute shows that the old adage about the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer has proven true in recent years.
The liberal-leaning economic think tank took a look at who gained and who lost wealth between 1983 and 2009, the year the U.S. officially came out of recession.
According to their analysis, the vast majority of the wealth gains — more than 80 percent — went to the richest 5 percent of the population.
The slightly-less-wealthy also saw some gains, but that’s where the good news ends. The bottom 60 percent of households by wealth actually lost ground over the 26-year period, according to EPI.
Things have not likely gotten much better for folks since 2009. The Census reported last week that real median income fell again last year, marking the third straight year that has happened.
In addition, the Federal Reserve reported Friday that household wealth took a hit in second quarter of this year, as stock market swings and real estate woes slammed our finances.
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it's about time to get this economy back with getting rid of the employee/employer contracts, vacation pay, holiday pay, sick pay, and overtime. Everybody need to sacrifice a little to get it back and this is the way i see us going, so suck it up and lets do it.
I can't come up with a good comment for your rhetoric. Maybe because you are telling what may be a person with a cancer-stricken parent to "suck it up" and suggesting to remove overtime to provide no incentive to work for longer than a person should.
If you want to be on everybody's good side, tell the CEOs to suck it up and quit dining on gold-speckled meals and paying celebrities to visit their houses, and actually treat its employees as something other than liabilities.
I would not want to be a rich person these days: people are ticked off and are biting at the bit to lash out at anyone using finances at the expense of others.
I too am dumbfounded by your comment, though I do think the poor and middle class deserve some of the blame for skyrocketing income inequality. Too many still see themselves, as the Sinclair Lewis (John Steinbeck?) quote goes, "not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." Sure, every now and then someone does much better than their parents; however, for most people, it is a forgone conclusion that they will remain in the same social/economic class at their parents, and nowadays that's if you're lucky. Too many people voting and acting against their best interests.