This sort of information needs to be shouted from every rooftop in America. Americans should know the just how the economy has been manipulated to allow such an income disparity between the rich and the middle class and working poor.
What part of “grossly inequitable” does the GOP not understand? Income levels between the working class and the “well off” should have never gotten to this point.
One could call it greed, which is bad enough and considered one of the seven deadly sins, but this goes beyond greed, these numbers show that the GOP is complicit with corporations in sabotaging our Democracy by making corporations the most powerful “people” in America! My question is…to what end?
Think Progress
After the longest recession since WWII, many Americans are still struggling while S&P 500 corporations are sitting on $800 billion in cash and making massive profits. Now, economists from Northeastern University have released a study that finds our sluggish economic recovery has almost solely benefited corporations. According to the study:
“Between the second quarter of 2009 and the fourth quarter of 2010, real national income in the U.S. increased by $528 billion. Pre-tax corporate profits by themselves had increased by $464 billion while aggregate real wages and salaries rose by only $7 billion or only .1%. Over this six quarter period, corporate profits captured 88% of the growth in real national income while aggregate wages and salaries accounted for only slightly more than 1% of the growth in real national income. …The absence of any positive share of national income growth due to wages and salaries received by American workers during the current economic recovery is historically unprecedented.”
The New York Times adds, “According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, average real hourly earnings for all employees actually declined by 1.1 percent from June 2009, when the recovery began, to May 2011, the month for which the most recent earnings numbers are available.”
So as average wages fall, and nearly 14 million people remain unemployed, America’s economic recovery has almost entirely benefited corporations. This development adds another chapter to the decline of the middle class, whose incomes are shrinking and wages are stagnating. Last year, top executives’ salaries increased 27 percent, while workers’ salaries increased only 2 percent. At the moment, income inequality in America is the worst it’s been since the 1920s, as the richest 1 percent make nearly 25 percent of the country’s income.
Related articles
- Jobless, wageless ‘recovery’ sure ain’t profitless (dailykos.com)
- Workers’ share of national income fails to recover after 21st Century recessions (dailykos.com)
- The income gap in America (quinnscommentary.com)
- The Recovery / US: Capitalists earn what they spend and workers spend what they earn (skillsinfo.wordpress.com)
- Chart Of The Day: For American Workers, No Economic Recovery (alternet.org)
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