US Income Inequality: Top !% Take Home 24% of US Income

[boedicca]

I wonder if the article in the OP used the bogus data set:

The Social Security Administration asked its inspector general to investigate how a $32.3 billion mistake skewed its statistics on 2009 wages in the U.S.

Two people were found to have filed multiple W-2 forms that made them into multibillionaires, an agency official said yesterday. Those reports threw statistical wage tables out of whack and, in figures released Oct. 15, made it appear that top U.S. earners had seen their pay quintuple in 2009 to an average of $519 million.

The agency yesterday released corrected tables that showed the average incomes of the top earners, in fact, declined 7.7 percent to $84 million each.

Social Security spokesman Mark Lassiter provided few details about the W-2 forms and declined to answer questions about how they were filed, how many were filed by the same two people, or if a hoax was suspected. “We call it erroneous, you call it fictitious. It’s the same thing,” Lassiter said. “There were some invalid, I guess is the best way to put it, W- 2s.”

The W-2 is a tax form on which employers report their workers’ compensation. Taxpayers must provide a copy when they file tax returns.

Lassiter said this is the first time Social Security statistics have been affected by erroneous filings. A written request detailing concerns about the data was sent yesterday to the Office of the Inspector General, he said.

Jonathan Lasher, a spokesman for the inspector general’s office, confirmed the request. “It wouldn’t be an actionable investigation at this point, more properly an allegation, but we are looking into it,” Lasher said.

High Earners

The Social Security Administration figures are based on forms filed with the Internal Revenue Service. It wasn’t known yesterday whether the IRS was conducting its own investigation into how the W-2 forms were submitted. IRS spokesman Terry Lemons said he didn’t “have any immediate comment.”

Bloomberg News wrote a report last week about high-earners’ income after questioning Social Security officials about record- high wages found in the statistics. The agency’s staff confirmed the data, though they began reviewing W-2s by hand after the news story was published.

Yesterday, the Social Security office announced it found “invalid” wages from two of the 74 top wage earners detailed in its data.

The data were part of the National Average Wage Index and contained the pay for 74 Americans who earned more than $50 million in 2009. The Social Security review found two tax filers, between them, reported more than $32 billion in wages and officials decided to invalidate those filings.

Error Discovered

“We discovered an error in the net compensation for wage earners earning $50 million and over and have adjusted those figures downward,” Lassiter said in an initial e-mail.

The combined total earned by the top Americans fell to $6 billion last year from $11.9 billion in 2008, the agency said in the corrected report. ...

`Invalid' Forms by Supposed Billionaires Skew U.S. Wage Figures - Bloomberg

 

[The Rabbi]

That qualifies the US as a third world nation.

U.S. Income Inequality: Top 1 Percent Take Home 24 Percent Of U.S. Income

The New York Times:

The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.

Read the whole story: The New York Times

and that 1% actually produces no product themselves.
They make their money from the labor of others.
Not judging, just saying.

Another pseudo-Marxist.
I suppose people just spontaneously produce stuff. No one has to to design it. No one has to arrange financing for the machines to make it. No one has to invest in the company. No one has to hire anyone. No one has to market the product. No one has to ship the product. No one has to package the product. No one has price the product. No one has to service the product.

If the Left had their way we'd be back in medieval England living on "sustainable" family farms, spending 20 hours a day in back breaking dangerous labor and living until we're 40.

 

[LibocalypseNow]

Seriously,the UN should give us all our money back. Now that the NY Slimes has declared us "Third World",i think it's only right the UN pony up. Are you with me?

 

[uscitizen]

That qualifies the US as a third world nation.

U.S. Income Inequality: Top 1 Percent Take Home 24 Percent Of U.S. Income

The New York Times:

The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.

Read the whole story: The New York Times

and that 1% actually produces no product themselves.
They make their money from the labor of others.
Not judging, just saying.

Actually, how many folks are making things at all anymore? Part of the problem is we've gone from an industrial based economy to a....what the heck are we doing again?

We're pretty much a pure consumerism based economy, and that's unsustainable.

What do you call an economy based on playing with money anyway?

And yes you are correct the economic path we are on is unsustainable.

 

[uscitizen]

That qualifies the US as a third world nation.

U.S. Income Inequality: Top 1 Percent Take Home 24 Percent Of U.S. Income

The New York Times:

The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.

Read the whole story: The New York Times

and that 1% actually produces no product themselves.
They make their money from the labor of others.
Not judging, just saying.

one could say that about ANY business owner.
Yes. ON Planet liberal, all profit is evil as are all business owners.
What a bunch of class envy bullshit.

Yes from the one who last night told me I was a failure at failing. And apparently thought that was an insult.

 

[Sallow]

Let's see.

Wealth and power bequeathed from generation to generation.

Now why does that seem so damned familiar?

 

[Foxfyre]

Very interesting article - if anyone is interested - The full article is here: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/07/opinion/07kristof.html?_r=1

Kristoff makes a few good points, but we are far from a "banana republic". Show me a "banana republic" where any child, no matter how humble his or her origins, can grow up to be president?? Or where the chance at "upward mobility" is as high as it is here? Also, the 24% that he cites in his op-ed includes capital gains, business income, rents, etc, and excludes government transfers like unemployment and social security - so it is a bit misleading. The dats is from 2007 as well. We had quite a bubble that year!!

The figures comes from this report - http://elsa.berkeley.edu/~saez/saez-UStopincomes-2007.pdf which, in my humble opinion, is well worth the read.

Also worth reading is this article Why we can't ignore growing income inequality. (1) - By Timothy Noah - Slate Magazine from Slate - that is also referred to in the Kristoff Op-Ed piece.


The bottom line is that even if we all agree that this is a problem -none of the experts have any real idea how to reverse the trend because almost no one can agree about what's causing it!!

Also the article doesn't deal with how much of that theoretical 24% is the foundation pool from which us less affluent are able to borrow as we need to.

Or how much is plowed into the stock market thus helping business prosper along with the investments of us small investors.

Or how much is used to build museum and hospital wings or fund scholarships or foundations or research labs.

Or how much is used for venture capital or to expand existing businesses providing more jobs and opportunity for those who need those jobs and opportunity.

The truth is that if we confiscated ALL the wealth--not all the income but all the wealth--of the very rich, we would have enough to run the country for at most a very few weeks. And then the ranks of the poor would swell enormously and all of us would suffer a great deal.

If our society could eliminate the class envy pushed by the Left and restore the conviction that all who prepare themselves for success will likely succeed, we would be enormously better off.

 

[Dont Taz Me Bro]

Let's see.

Wealth and power bequeathed from generation to generation.

Now why does that seem so damned familiar?

80% of millionaires are self made.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/stanley-millionaire.html

 

[boedicca]

Let's see.

Wealth and power bequeathed from generation to generation.

Now why does that seem so damned familiar?

80% of millionaires are self made.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/stanley-millionaire.html

The Equalizers would rather destroy the opportunity for that 80% to become millionaires than to tolerate the "roll of the gene pool dice" which results in a lucky few being born into wealth.

 

[bigrebnc1775]

That qualifies the US as a third world nation.

U.S. Income Inequality: Top 1 Percent Take Home 24 Percent Of U.S. Income

The New York Times:

The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.

Read the whole story: The New York Times

It's their money asswhole they earned it by investing it. They took the chance. Are you going to help them if they lose money on an investmnent? If it's not right for them too keep what they invested at a profit then I guess you need to bail them out when they lose money.

 

[Zander]

Let's see.

Wealth and power bequeathed from generation to generation.

Now why does that seem so damned familiar?

It could be because you like to believe in Fairy tales...Do you believe in Jack and the Beanstalk too?

 

[Sallow]

Let's see.

Wealth and power bequeathed from generation to generation.

Now why does that seem so damned familiar?

80% of millionaires are self made.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/stanley-millionaire.html

Based on what? This "book"?

 

[Sallow]

Let's see.

Wealth and power bequeathed from generation to generation.

Now why does that seem so damned familiar?

It could be because you like to believe in Fairy tales...Do you believe in Jack in the Beanstalk too?

Naw.

That someone like Donald Trump is thought to be "self made" is a fairy tale. Or even, George W. Bush. The second of which, proved just how close we are coming to that eventual plutocracy you guys are so hoping for..

 

[Political Junky]

Let's see.

Wealth and power bequeathed from generation to generation.

Now why does that seem so damned familiar?

80% of millionaires are self made.

http://www.nytimes.com/books/first/s/stanley-millionaire.html

The Equalizers would rather destroy the opportunity for that 80% to become millionaires than to tolerate the "roll of the gene pool dice" which results in a lucky few being born into wealth.

A $Million doesn't get one close to the top 1%.

 

[rightwinger]

And the reason we want to drop the tax rate on the richest 1% ????

American workers have higher productivity and work more hours than any worker in the world....and have less to show for it

 

[Zander]

Let's see.

Wealth and power bequeathed from generation to generation.

Now why does that seem so damned familiar?

It could be because you like to believe in Fairy tales...Do you believe in Jack in the Beanstalk too?

Naw.

That someone like Donald Trump is thought to be "self made" is a fairy tale. Or even, George W. Bush. The second of which, proved just how close we are coming to that eventual plutocracy you guys are so hoping for..

You truly have a twisted relationship with facts. There is some generational wealth transfer and there always will be, but the VAST majority of wealth in this country is created in one generation.

What about Bill Gates? Warren Buffet? and literally hundreds of thousands of others - roughly 10% of the people in the country have a net worth greater than $1 million.

 

[Trajan]

That qualifies the US as a third world nation.

U.S. Income Inequality: Top 1 Percent Take Home 24 Percent Of U.S. Income

The New York Times:

The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.

Read the whole story: The New York Times

god not this again...fcs.

 

[boedicca]

That qualifies the US as a third world nation.

U.S. Income Inequality: Top 1 Percent Take Home 24 Percent Of U.S. Income

The New York Times:

The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976. As Timothy Noah of Slate noted in an excellent series on inequality, the United States now arguably has a more unequal distribution of wealth than traditional banana republics like Nicaragua, Venezuela and Guyana.

Read the whole story: The New York Times

god not this again...fcs.

We're going to see many more such screeds as the MSM carry water for Obama to support his stance that anyone making over $250K is the Evil Rich and undeserving of having continuing BOOOSSSHHHHH tax cuts.

 

[rightwinger]

The richest 1 percent of Americans now take home almost 24 percent of income, up from almost 9 percent in 1976.

In 1976, the average worker could buy a house, send their kids to college, have full health insurance...all on one salary

Since then, the wealthiest 1% has convinced them that times are bad, they need to work harder, accept lower benefits at less pay..... all while pocketing more and more of available wealth

 

[thereisnospoon]

and that 1% actually produces no product themselves.
They make their money from the labor of others.
Not judging, just saying.

one could say that about ANY business owner.
Yes. ON Planet liberal, all profit is evil as are all business owners.
What a bunch of class envy bullshit.

Yes from the one who last night told me I was a failure at failing. And apparently thought that was an insult.

Hit a nerve, didn't I?..Yer such a schmuck.
You haven't elicited a valid point in this entire thread. No wonder you were always picked last and put in right field.