taking stock of the affluent among us

[xchrom]

http://www.nationofchange.org/taking-stock-most-affluent-among-us-1384362274

How unequal have workplaces in the United States become? Our best answer happens to come from a source you might not expect: the Social Security Administration.

Social Security statisticians each year tally up how much compensation gets reported on W-2s, the forms that employers have to file for all their employees, clerks and chief executives alike. Social Security reports these numbers by income level once a year — and in the process paints an incredibly detailed pay-portrait of the contemporary American workplace.

For typical Americans workers, this workplace has become steadily less rewarding. The latest Social Security figures, released last month, show annual wages for the median — most typical — American worker down $980 in 2012 from five years earlier. In effect, notesanalyst David Cay Johnston, these typical workers are now working 52 weeks a year for what would have been — in 2007 — 50 weeks of pay.

But these numbers don’t tell the full story of America’s income inequality. Social Security statisticians only tally paycheck data. Their work doesn’t count income from dividends, interest, capital gains, and profits from business operations.Over in America’s elite corner offices, by contrast, the pay keeps pouring in. The ranks of Americans making over $5 million a year grew 27 percent in 2012. The actual compensation this cohort collected soared 40 percent over what the $5 million-plus crowd pocketed in 2011.

[Laelth]

1. k&r for the truth, however depressing it may be. n/t

-Laelth

[LiberalEsto]

2. And then there are those who don't get paychecks at all

and aren't counted.