CBO Report: Top Earners' Incomes Soared 275 Percent Since Late 1970s

[Bill USA]

http://slatest.slate.com/posts/2011/10/26/america_s_richest_one_percent_nearly_triple_their_income.html

A new study from the Congressional Budget Office shows that the income of America’s richest 1 percent grew 275 percent between 1979 and 2007, compared with a 65-percent gain for the top 20 percent and an 18-percent gain for the bottom 20 percent. The average increase for all households came in at 62 percent.

From the report: “The precise reasons for the rapid growth in income at the top are not well understood. Researchers have offered several potential rationales, including technical innovations that have changed the labor market for superstars (such as actors, athletes and musicians), changes in the governance and structure of executive compensation, increases in firms’ size and complexity, and the increasing scale of financial-sector activities.”

The top one percent also managed to more than double their share of the nation’s income over the three decades. As the New York Times points out, the CBO explained that federal policy has become less redistributive since the late 1970s, and that federal benefit payments are doing less to even out income distribution as a growing share of benefits such as Social Security are funneled to older Americans, regardless of their income.

http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12485"> CBO report: Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007

After-tax income for the highest-income households grew more than it did for any other group. (After-tax income is income after federal taxes have been deducted and government transfers—which are payments to people through such programs as Social Security and Unemployment Insurance—have been added.)

CBO finds that, between 1979 and 2007, income grew by:

275 percent for the top 1 percent of households,
65 percent for the next 19 percent,
Just under 40 percent for the next 60 percent, and
18 percent for the bottom 20 percent.

[aquart]

1. They can keep 25%. Return the 250.

[indepat]

2. Can you say Ronnie Reagan's voodoo economics for which millions who have been substantially

harmed played a major role in his virtual deification. It makes no sense, Admiral. :patriot: