(4 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released a report that added more evidence that income inequality between the top American income earners and the middle and lower classes continues to grow, as the top one percent saw its average after-tax income grow by 275 percent between 1979 and 2007.
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The CBO report highlighted these points:
The share of after-tax household income for the top 1 percent of the population more than doubled, climbing to 17 percent in 2007 from nearly 8 percent in 1979. The most affluent fifth of the population received 53 percent of after-tax household income in 2007, up from 43 percent in 1979. In other words, the after-tax income of the most affluent fifth exceeded the income of the other four-fifths of the population. People in the lowest fifth of the population received about 5 percent of after-tax household income in 2007, down from 7 percent in 1979. People in the middle three-fifths of the population saw their shares of after-tax income decline by 2 to 3 percentage points from 1979 to 2007.
There is also a great divide between how the Americans want the government to deal with this and the path that the government is headed down. The Occupy Wall Street protests across the country have started the news media talking about jobs and not the fake deficit/debt crisis. In a poll take by the New York Times and CBS, most Americans approve of the OCW movement:
and by two thirds believe that the wealthiest Americans should pay higher taxes:
and the wealthiest Americans agree. In a survey released by the Spectrum Group, 67% of those those with investments of $1 million or more support raising taxes on those with $1 million or more in income.
Their approval of Congress has hit a record low in the single digits:
nor do they approve of the way Barack Obama or Congress has handled creating jobs:
If anyone is still wondering why there are protests and people are fed up, then you are either not listening and reading or you are part of the problem.
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