General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTHE Database
of income inequality, for those few who might be interested
http://topincomes.g-mond.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/#Database:
As a public service, your humble janitor has compiled and tabled some numbers, for some groups, every five years (both to eliminate the ups and downs of single years AND to avoid a mind-numbing endless row of numbers.
Cleans things up a bit. That's the janitor way.
Share of income going to various groups.
year *** 90-95th *** top 4% *** top 1% *** top 5% *** top 10%
___________________________________________________
1960 *** 10.9 *** 12.54 *** 10.03 *** 22.57 *** 33.47
1965 *** 10.9 *** 12.98 *** 10.89 *** 23.87 *** 34.77
1970 *** 10.96 *** 12.64 *** 9.03 *** 21.67 *** 32.63
1975 *** 11.45 *** 13.11 *** 8.87 *** 21.98 *** 33.43
1980 *** 11.47 *** 13.15 *** 10.02 *** 23.17 *** 34.64
1985 *** 11.44 *** 13.45 *** 12.67 *** 26.12 *** 37.56
1990 *** 11.57 *** 14.08 *** 14.33 *** 28.41 *** 39.98
1995 *** 11.89 *** 14.99 *** 15.23 *** 30.22 *** 42.11
2000 *** 11.00 *** 15.08 *** 21.52 *** 36.6 *** 47.6
2005 *** 11.18 *** 15.24 *** 21.92 *** 37.16 *** 48.34
2010 *** 12.19 *** 15.99 *** 19.86 *** 35.85 *** 48.04
_________________________________________
gain *** 1.29 *** 3.45 *** 9.83 *** 13.28 *** 14.57
Source of the numbers appears to be the research of Pikkety and Saez.
Just think though, once the economy really gets going, we will probably soon reach the point where the top 10% gets over 50% of the income.
I can hardly wait.
Just note how relatively flat those percentages were in the good old days - before Ronald Reagan.
edit - dang it all elad, the formatting trick that Make7 told me on DU2 isn't working. I have to use my old asterisk technique, and do it with an invisible cursor. Grabs microphone. "clean up on aisle 7, clean up on aisle 7"
NYC_SKP
(68,644 posts)ie in 2010 the top 10% earners held 48%?
I see the bottom are holding their own, did we lose the middle class?
hfojvt
(37,573 posts)taken by various groups.
May be kinda confusing. They do not include the bottom.
90-95th is part of the top 10%. The lower part of it, but still higher than 90%. So the top 10% is broken in to
top 1%
top 4% (meaning top 5% without top 1%)
next 5% (top 10% without the top 5%, or 90-95th percentile)
My point being that, while the gains of the top 1% are very large, the other parts of the top 10% have been taking bigger slices of the pie too - leaving that much less for the bottom, and the middle.
If the top 10% gets 48%, the bottom 50% gets 12%, then the middle 40% gets 40%.
Back in 1986 it was top 10% got 35%, bottom 50% got 17%, middle 40% got 48%. http://www.koch2congress.com/5.html
Unfortunately, I cannot find those stats going back before 1986.