The state of the 1 Percent is strong
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The state of the 1 Percent is strong
Hopefully President Obama will talk about the gap between rich and poor tonight. Here's why:
Saez has now updated this statistic to include 2011. When you look at the economic recovery's first two years, the top one percent (which by 2011 meant any household making more than about $367,000) captured 121 percent of all pre-tax income gains.
How is it even possible for the one percent to capture more than 100 percent of all income gains since the last recession? Looked at from one point of view, it's not. It is enough to say that in 2010 and 2011 all of the recovery went to the one percent. If you were in the bottom 99 percent, as by definition nearly all of us are, you didn’t see a dime of that recovery.
Adding:
If I were Obama, I'd be of two minds about flagging these statistics. On the one hand, they certainly make his case for the middle class more compelling. On the other hand … this happened on his watch! Since 1948, economic growth has most benefited those at the bottom of the income distribution whenever a Democrat was in the White House, and it's most benefited those at the top of the income distribution whenever a Republican was in the White House. Obama's first term, it seems increasingly clear, constitutes a dramatic break from this historic pattern. The U.S. economy’s current ability to expand—no matter who is president—without benefiting the 99 percent is something new. Perhaps we should do something to change that.
Either that, or Obama is just another president of the 1 Percent. He has three years and 11 months to get this right.
Blogger's note: I'm tied up on the Christopher Dorner drama...over and out.
Comments (64)
I found this a really great study by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institutes of Health, and now being brought up in the really great op ed piece by the former VP. So Tea Baggers in this area really need to take a good look at it.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/al-gore/tea-party-koch-brothers-big-tobacco_b_2689380.html— ScienceRules- Murryman again you dont have a clue about how things work. clue for you: Resource allocation therom.— Fisher
- In other words you have no idea how you came to that conclusion but you may or may not have read it somewhere and so its easy for you to make spurious correlation decisions. Exactly, msl, let's take two seemingly independent observations, and just invent correlation. I think the Great Recession was correlated with increased portion sizes and medium-chain restaurants.— Murrayman
- Murryman http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Real_wage Since 1974 wages have been steady going down, while the deficit has increased. Lots of great articles in the Palgrave about it too.— Fisher
- "Didn't you hear that women on contraception are slots?" - LOL. That's a comment of the year candidate. " Cause we have a deficit which has caused low growth in wages for 40 years now" - How has deficits caused low growth in wages? Its UNBELIEVABLE. You just made that up.— Murrayman
- "Today's minimum wage buys a third less than the minimum wage of the 1960s, despite being raised just a few years ago." WHY? Cause we have a deficit which has caused low growth in wages for 40 years now. More programs are not going to change that. Less programs, reduced govt and fiscally sound approach to govt will return growth in wages. Look at the countries which are growing they are using their resources and govt is small.— Fisher
- "Its not as if someone handed Bill Gates, Henry Ford, or any other great American innovator a boat load of money to put them in the supposed evil 1%, they got there by innovating and working hard." . . . . Did they succeed by starving their employees into working harder and longer hours for them? Indeed, Ford succeeded by paying his workers in 1914 more than double what the prevailing wage was, (more than even the first minimum wage enacted in the 30s), and reducing the employee work day to 8 hrs. There's your American "innovation", pal. Worker productivity increased dramatically, which is why he did it (not so his workers could afford his product, btw, as the PR would have it). Today's minimum wage buys a third less than the minimum wage of the 1960s, despite being raised just a few years ago.— montani semper liberi
- Good points, Monty... Ford's "innovation" didn't come from Washington, DC.
— michael_b - Try to stay on point, Monty.
Your illustration of Fords "innovation" is a good one. He decided what's good for him, his workers and his business. Not the government.
If other smart business owners want to adopt his methodology they should be free to do so - not have the government impose what they think is a good idea.
— michael_b - The jug eared idiot in the White House opposes school vouchers for DC students. Who says he doesn't destroy lives?— teardownthisfishwrap
- "How about not having 2 kid if you have a minimum wage skill set?" . . . . That's certainly the logic behind China's one-child policy and history of forced abortions. If Obama had indeed said that, as you propose, can you imagine how freaked out the righties would be today? How about we instead stop exporting our minimum wage jobs to these foreign "constructive slave" markets? Of course, our right wing friends can only find moral fault in God's natural plan as opposed to capitalism.— montani semper liberi
- Murryman, if you are unskilled and have to work low income jobs, you are then forced to work more hours to get by than the 40 hour custom week that others enjoy. Its not as if someone handed Bill Gates, Henry Ford, or any other great American innovator a boat load of money to put them in the supposed evil 1%, they got there by innovating and working hard. That’s the American dream; you succeed by working at it. The same way those who have a job where they can live comfortably working 40 hours a week are in that position because they acquired the skills necessary to land that job. I don’t shed a tear for those who don’t improve their own lot in life by improving themselves.
Again, if you want these people to make more money you have to accept that the good and services they provide are ultimately going to cost more, and people freak out when you raise prices on anything. There have always been low wage jobs, the only difference is now that there are less jobs available for unskilled workers that offer better salaries. That is the truth of the new American economy.— Greg S - pretty sure I heard somewhere that Bill Gates got student loans. Rubio was two-face last night. Out of one mouth he talked about how government helped him and his family and then, out of the other side of his mouth, he bad mouthed government.
- I like Obama's mindset that "a family of 4 living on minimum wage is below the poverty level". How about not having 2 kid if you have a minimum wage skill set? He never says a word about that.— tr88
- Don't you understand that it is every Americans right to have as many kids as they want? What part of rights without responsibilites don't you get?
It's quickly becoming the American way....— Wiseman6 - Still more more top-down government/DC solutions from the jug eared "Comuunity Organizer" president are what the country needs. Can there be any doubt? Maybe even throw in another 10,000 government bureaucrats too for good measure. Just watch the economy take off! lol— teardownthisfishwrap
- "Either we reevaluate what we think everyone deserves as a standard of living (i.e. stop being such consumers of junk we don’t really need) or a cultural shift happens in America where we all demand American made goods, knowing they will cost more, so the people that make them can buy all this junk that advertising tells them they need." The POTUS didn't mention any notion of consuming the finer things - he was talking about survival. Employees of the big box stores, working a regular schedule (business hours), workers in warehouses fulfilling online orders (Amazon) make $8/hr. At full time that's $320/wk -- gross. The point is, this isn't enough to survive.— Murrayman
- How about people delaying having kids to get themselves an education so they can compete in the real world? — tr88
- Didn't you hear that women on contraception are slots?
— one_eyed_jack - even without kids, that person will still collect welfare to survive. so why do you support your tax dollars subsidizing underpaid workers so employers can pocket more for themselves and make the government pay their workers.
- Medic - we are already well on the way to fascism.
The racism, warmongering, and rigging the economy to only benefit the parasites atop the food chain are very-well established as the only policies the republics will follow. Unfortunately, the Democrats are too willing to go along, particularly on the economic issues.
It is only a matter of how violently the 1% will exert their control through legal and extralegal means.— JeffJenk - Will, what you and your beloved occupiers who claim to represent the 99% just don’t get is that this is the new American economy, brought on by decades of increased standard of living. We all want the flat screens, ipads, multiple cars, etc etc. But the problem is, those things aren’t affordable to those who are what you might call the blue collar, non-college educated, middle class; who for so long were the staple of America. Manufacturing jobs just aren’t skilled enough to deserve a salary that can afford this new standard of living that everyone expects. Hence unions demanding higher wages, followed by corporations moving jobs overseas to where salary demands are more in line with the skill level of the position.
Either we reevaluate what we think everyone deserves as a standard of living (i.e. stop being such consumers of junk we don’t really need) or a cultural shift happens in America where we all demand American made goods, knowing they will cost more, so the people that make them can buy all this junk that advertising tells them they need.
Neither of those two things is going to happen, and our leaders on both sides will keep spitting one form of lie or another to hide this truth from everyone. The traditional middle class, blue collar, sector of mid 1900s is gone, and there is no amount of union thuggary that is going to bring that back.
— Greg S - " If we raise the min wage to 50 an hour, poverty is solved." Oh yes, such scholarship, such precision. Yes, yes - 50 an hour, that's the REAL hidden agenda from Obama, not the $9/hr he proposed. And what's to stop him from getting 50? After all this is a POTUS who is trying to end term limits. OF course CD75 stands ready to show his studies of how the last raise in the minimum wage caused endless misery and all kinds of shifting. And most importantly, where's RG? Come get your comeuppance.— Murrayman
- Obamaland: People flipping burgers deserve $10 an hour. Forward.— CD75
- " He is the Destroyer of Lives." Yep, like all those millions of people who lost jobs and received assistance from expanded programs signed by Obama, so they didn't have to have their lives completely turned upside down. Destroyer! All those tax credits and holidays signed by Obama? Destroyer!— Murrayman
- liberal la la land logic: If we raise the min wage to 50 an hour, poverty is solved.— CD75
- The only thing different about his vision is the way he is going about selling it. For the first time in a while, a Republican made a compelling argument in front of a camera regarding the unintended consequences of policy. He softened the focus on those who would lose as a result of a policy, as there must always be losers. But substantively, it was the same policy prescriptions - ever lower taxes, ever lower regulations. The thing of it, these prescriptions will be easier to sell come 2016, as the economy will be in much better shape (assuming deleveraging continues to progress apace).— Murrayman
Murray, what exactly did Rubio do last night which would lead any rational person to believe that he isn't pedaling the same old repackaged nonsense that Romney, Bush, Paul Ryan and all of the other Republicans have been selling for 30 years?
The only difference is that he is Cuban. As a rising star in the GOP, what, exactly was different about his vision?— wokmaster- How many crank charlatans have passed through the US touting the downfall of this country, right before an upsurge cycle? "There aren't enough dollars to pay for your hero's insatiable spending spree" Phillies2008WSChamps, there is no spending spree like you insist. It doesn't exist. But don't let that stop you. YOu have no interest in analysis, only political conjecture. Wok, I wouldn't underestimate Rubio. I still think he'll be the frontrunner. Rubio said something last night, a repeat, that is the CRUX of the right wing economic dogma. He got it from The Heritage Foundation, and it continues to rise from the dead - "for every dollar the government borrows, that is one less dollar available to the private sector". It is so blatantly wrong its absurd, but it persists, like athlete's foot.— Murrayman
- the country had two years of those speeches and did not buy. american people are not buying these stale, tired ideas. and republicans are too dense and in love with themselves to realize it.
- hey 1%, move out of the country if you don't like it.— high water
- Who'll pay the 40% of the taxes they take with them? — tr88
- Someone better give Boobio a bid and hankie before he goes on TV next time. Clearly not ready for primetime!— The Fundamentals of the Economy are Fine
- I'm sure the raise in the minimum wage will do wonders for black teen unemployment, which is currently what - about 3,480%? And of course amnesty will be a big boon as well. This clown is all about creating more dependency on govt. He is the Destroyer of Lives. The Opposite of Hope.— teardownthisfishwrap
- So raising the minimum wage to 9 dollars an hour = more dependency on government? And THAT destroys lives? lol — wokmaster
- The top 1% is doing all right for themselves and the country. They pay taxes, create jobs and generally arent gunning people down on the streets. Maybe we should start looking at the bottom 1%. Or maybe the bottom 20%. We are producing tons of trash in these groups.— tr88
- I am democrat - gimme gimme.— CD75
- Does "THE MEDIC" ever see THE PSYCHIATRIST?— orange rhino
Some of us happened upon these lives by accident – we tried a year abroad and found that we liked it – others made a conscious decision to pack up and leave for good.
You’ll find us in Canada, all over Europe, in many parts of Asia, in Australia and New Zealand, and in most other countries of the globe.
Do we miss our friends and family? Yes.
Do we occasionally miss aspects of our former country? Yes.
Do we plan on ever living again in the United States? Never.
And those of us with permanent residence or citizenship can sponsor family members from back home for long-term visas in our adopted countries.
In closing, I want to remind you of something – unless you are an American Indian or a descendant of slaves, at some point your ancestors chose to leave their homeland in search of a better life.
They weren’t traitors and they weren’t bad people, they just wanted a better life for themselves and their families.
Isn’t it time that you continue their journey?
- If you’re young, you’ve got plenty of choices. You can go to university or graduate school abroad and start building skills that will qualify you for a work visa.
If you’ve already got some real work skills, you can apply to emigrate to any number of countries as a skilled immigrant.
If you're older and you’ve got some savings, you can retire to a place like Costa Rica or the Philippines.
If you can’t qualify for a work, student or retirement visa, don’t let that stop you – travel on a tourist visa to a country that appeals to you and talk to the expats you meet there.
Whatever you do, go speak to an immigration lawyer as soon as you can.
Find out exactly how to get on a path that will lead to permanent residence and eventually citizenship in the country of your choice.
You will not be alone.
There are millions of Americans just like me living outside the US.
Living lives much more fulfilling, peaceful, free and abundant than we ever could have attained back home.
- Once the sh*t really hits the fan, do you really think you’ll just be able to jump into the old station wagon, drive across the Canadian border and spend the rest of your days fishing and drinking Molson?
No, the government is going to lock the place down.
They don’t want their tax base escaping.
They don’t want their “recruits” escaping.
They don’t want YOU escaping.
I am not writing this to scare you.
I write this to you as a friend.
If you are able to read and understand what I’ve written here, then you are a member of a small minority in the United States.
You are a minority in a country that has no place for you.
So what should you do?
You should leave the United States of America. Yes, I said LEAVE.
- Let’s face it: the United States is like the former Yugoslavia – a collection of mutually antagonistic cultures united in name only.
You’ve got your own version of the Taliban: right-wing Christian fundamentalists who actively loathe the idea of secular Constitutional government.
You’ve got a vast intellectual underclass that has spent the last few decades soaking up Fox News and talk radio propaganda, eager to blame the collapse on Democrats, gays and immigrants.
You’ve got a ruthless ownership class that will use all the means at its disposal to protect its wealth from the starving masses.
On top of all that you’ve got vast factory farms, sprawling suburbs and a truck-based shipping system, all of it entirely dependent on oil that is about to become completely unaffordable.
And you’ve got guns. Lots of guns. In short: the United States is about to become a very unwholesome place to be.
Right now, the government is building fences and walls along its northern and southern borders.
Right now, the government is working on a national ID system (soon to be fitted with biometric features).
Right now, the government is building a surveillance state so extensive that they will be able to follow your every move, online, in the street and across borders.
If you think this is just to protect you from “terrorists,” then you’re sadly mistaken.
- There are only 2 possible futures facing the United States, and neither one is pretty.
The best case is a slow, orderly decline – essentially a continuation of what’s been happening for the last 2 decades.
Wages will drop, unemployment will rise, Medicare and Social Security benefits will be slashed, the currency will decline in value, and the disparity of wealth will spiral out of control until the United States starts to resemble Mexico or the Philippines – tiny islands of wealth surrounded by great poverty (the country is already halfway there).
Equally likely is a sudden collapse, perhaps brought about by a rapid flight from the US dollar by creditor nations like China, Japan, Korea and the OPEC nations.
A related possibility would be a default by the US government on its vast debt. One look at the financial balance sheet of the US government should convince you how likely this is: governmental spending is skyrocketing and tax receipts are plummeting – something has to give.
If either of these scenarios plays out, the resulting depression will make the present recession look like a walk in the park.
Whether the collapse is gradual or gut-wrenchingly sudden, the results will be chaos, civil strife and fascism.
- The United States of America is not going to change for the better. The only change will be for the worse.
And when I say worse, I mean much worse.
As we speak, the economic system that sustained the country during the post-war years is collapsing. The United States maxed out its “credit card” sometime in 2008 and now its lenders, starting with China, are in the process of laying the foundations for a new monetary system to replace the Anglo-American “petro-dollar” system.
As soon as there is a viable alternative to the US dollar, the US will sink like a stone.
While the US was running up crushing levels of debt, it was busy shipping its source of wealth (production-manufacturing jobs) and white-collar jobs overseas, and letting its infrastructure fall to pieces.
Meanwhile, Asian and European countries were investing in education, infrastructure and raw materials.
Even if the United States tried to rebuild a real economy (as opposed to a service/peddler/financial economy) do think American workers would ever be able to compete with the workers of China or Europe?
Have you ever seen a Japanese or German factory?
Have you ever met a Singaporean or Chinese worker?
- "I don't always drink water in the middle of the most important speech of my life. But when I do, I make sure it is a stubby bottle of water."
"Stay thirsty my friends."— wokmaster - Haha....good one Wok! — The Fundamentals of the Economy are Fine
- Will, I see that you neglected to mention that the top 1% also suffered the largest losses during the recession. It makes sense that the group that suffers the largest losses will then see the largest gains during the recovery.— jfar86
- There will be plenty said about the neophyte Marco Rubio bending down to take a drink from his water bottle in the middle of his post SOTU rebuttal. Cringe-worthy. Much will be said about his whiney demeanor and laser-like focus on the President instead of the country. But what about the disgusting way he made love to his own mouth?
Not ready for Prime Time.— wokmaster 
A $9 minimum wage is at least a small step in the right direction.- Georgie - Your corporate overlords would be proud of that well thought out response. — wokmaster
- It's funny how the people who don't pay any taxes are complaining that the people who pay most of the taxes aren't paying their fair share. Weak talking point Will. There aren't enough dollars to pay for your hero's insatiable spending spree. We need to come up with a trillion dollars EVERY YEAR, not just a trillion over 10 years or whatever your hero is proposing.— Phillies2008WSChamps
- Logically, Soros, Buffet, execs from Google, execs from Microsoft, a bunch of no defunct companies the USA put dollars into and Congress account for nearly all of the gains. Your right Will, things need to change.
— Fisher - "I want my free stuff!"— OrvalEugeneFaubus
- Ah, the Obamaphone lie. A program that's been around since the Reagan Administration, cast onto the pile of "bad things Obama does."
A perfect embodiment of the cognitive disconnect in the right nowadays: for all their talk about the left viewing the President as a messiah, it is they who make him the martyr for every government policy they happen to disagree with at what ever moment they decide to be angry about it, no matter the facts. And then they get angrier when people point out that all they are doing is ranting.
The Simpsons parodied irrational anger in the 90s, with Grandpa Simpson waving his fists at the clouds from a window in his home. It's a thing people, and 20 years later we get Rand Paul, Mitt Romney and Orval parroting it.— wokmaster - that's why I'm independent. both parties are in bed with each other and hardly represent the people.— mulford71
- Dems benefit the bottom, Reps benefit the top...who benefits the middle class? When liberals complain about conservatives in the middle class voting against their best interests, the conservatives can point to the fact that Dems benefit the lower income. I have given up on the 2 party system that has destroyed our economy...maybe others should too.— FletcherT
- Dems are KILLING the bottom of the heap. Or havent you noticed? — tr88
- Because youre blinded by your government check. — tr88
- Nothing cures blindness-by-gubmint-check than a raise in the minimum wage, don't you think? If that wage can't even compete with paltry gubmint assistance tied to the cost of living, then who do you blame? Obviously, capitalism is failing.
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