Study: The rich is getting richer and the poor is getting poorer

[davidn3600]

Economic inequality in the United States has been receiving a lot of attention. But it’s not merely an issue of the rich getting richer. The typical American household has been getting poorer, too.

The inflation-adjusted net worth for the typical household was $87,992 in 2003. Ten years later, it was only $56,335, or a 36 percent decline, according to a study financed by the Russell Sage Foundation. Those are the figures for a household at the median point in the wealth distribution — the level at which there are an equal number of households whose worth is higher and lower. But during the same period, the net worth of wealthy households increased substantially.

The Russell Sage study also examined net worth at the 95th percentile. (For households at that level, 94 percent of the population had less wealth and 4 percent had more.) It found that for this well-do-do slice of the population, household net worth increased 14 percent over the same 10 years. Other research, by economists like Edward Wolff at New York University, has shown even greater gains in wealth for the richest 1 percent of households.

For households at the median level of net worth, much of the damage has occurred since the start of the last recession in 2007. Until then, net worth had been rising for the typical household, although at a slower pace than for households in higher wealth brackets. But much of the gain for many typical households came from the rising value of their homes. Exclude that housing wealth and the picture is worse: Median net worth began to decline even earlier.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/07/27/business/the-typical-household-now-worth-a-third-less.html?_r=0

Income inequality is increasing in America. So although there are some here who like to gush over unemployment figures, this here is the real numbers that matter. The fact is that the average American continues to get poorer, even though the economy is in "recovery."

[ladjf]

1. Is there anyone in America who doesn't already know this?

The question is, what is the best way to turn this awful situation around?

[randys1]

2. Dear lord, the answer is to do things the right will never allow and much of the

dem party wont either...

a. top tax rate 90% for any income over $10 million regardless of whether it is investment income or payroll or whatever

b. tariffs on imports are increased gradually while federal gvt provides no interest loans to new start ups in america to make everything here we now buy made elsewhere like tv's and toasters and spatulas and doormats and drills and cars and bridges

c. penalize any outsourcing of jobs, and if you move your corp hq out of this country, the cost to sell in this country doubles.

and more, none of this will ever happen...you are soon to be a 3rd world poverty person, get used to it

[Dustlawyer]

5. Take away CAMPAIGN CONTRIBUTIONS and watch things change quickly!

Publicly Funded Elections with the media airing the campaign ads as a public service for using OUR airwaves under license! As long as they can legally buy our politicians, Republicans and Democrats, nothing will really change.

September 13th- November 4th and beyond protest getting the $ out of politics!

[closeupready]

7. Ha! Yeah right. Watch Congress cut their own dirty source of $$.

Like they will do that when pigs fly.

[Dustlawyer]

8. It would take a lot of dedicated people true, but if enough people are fed up it can happen.

What would you propose, or is it hopeless and we should just surrender?

[JHB]

6. Let's also remind people of what the tax bracket structure used to look like

Progressivity on very high incomes was eliminated under Reagan, and has never been restored.

[Downwinder]

3. In the meantime, in between time Ain't we got fun?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ain%27t_We_Got_Fun%3F

[daleanime]

4. K&R....

[CountAllVotes]

9. Is a "study" needed to know this?

I guess so being a study (funded by who?) in done for almost anything these days.

Just look outside, look on the streets in your town, note the number of homeless that seem to be getting to be more and more numerous by the day.

Poverty is just a step away for many people in America and a grim reality for those already knowing it.

To the late middle-class: We barely knew ye.

[awoke_in_2003]

10. I hate to nit pick...

but don't you think that someone employed at the NY Times would know how to congugate a verb?