Income Disparity And Wealth Consolidation Show Eerie Resemblances To 1928
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When you’re not checking the stock market today, check out Emmanuel Saez’s recently updated tables on income inequality. Here’s an interesting table:
Look at incomes for the top 1% of earners — the solid black triangles. You’ll see that in 2006, their share of the nation’s income (22.9%) reached its modern peak. The only year higher? 1928. Another table shows that the top 10% in 2006 took a bigger share (49.7%) than at any point since 1917. The year 1928 was the runner-up.
March 18th, 2008 at 20:05
I took the graph into Photoshop and flipped the years 1913 to 1958 (as though the graph were being read in reverse) and superimposed those years on 1978 to the present and they matched nearly perfectly (within 5% or so), right down to nearly identical peaks and valleys. Btw, I choose those years because 1958 represents a sort of “bottom of the trough” where the share of the top 1-5% remained relatively steady (save for a small dip in the 60’s and 70’s) before taking off again in 1978. It’s interesting to note that during Bill Clinton’s administration, the graph really takes off and then tanks at the beginning of GW’s reign. The Internet bubble in action. I can’t wait to see the monumental damage I have to live through thanks to current, and far worse, crisis. Canada!