Wanna Get Really Angry ??? - What If Your Income Grew As Fast As the 1 Percent's? Try Our Calculator

[WillyT]

What If Your Income Grew As Fast As the 1 Percent's? Try Our Calculator
See what you'd earn if most Americans' paychecks had kept up with the explosion at the top of the income scale.
Dave Gilson, Jaeah Lee, and Ben Breedlove - MoJo
Thu Dec. 5, 2013 3:00 AM GMT

<snip>

The richest 1 percent of Americans have seen their average income jump more than 270 percent over the past five decades. Meanwhile, the average income of the least wealthy 90 percent of Americans grew an anemic 22 percent during that time. (Those figures are based on inflation-adjusted real dollars.)

So how much would you be earning today if the phenomenal income growth at the very top of the income scale had trickled down to most Americans? Use this calculator to find out:

<snip>

Calculator Here: http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2013/12/calculator-what-if-your-income-grew-fast-1-percent

[hunter]

1. The Reagan Revolution!

[badtoworse]

2. I must be interpreting this wrong

I took my income 40 years ago and adjusted it for inflation. (I used the GDP Implicit Price Deflator: 1973 value = 26; 2013 valu = 115). That gives a multiplier of 4.25. In other words, my 1973 income in current dollars would equal 4.25 times the 1973 value. If I divide my current income by 4.25 times my 1973 income, I get a value that's a lot more than 270%. I also did the calculation using the CPI and got a similar result (the CPI calculation yielded a 5.3 multiplier). I know I've done well in my career and I'm thankful for it, but I'm not in the 1%.

What am I doing wrong?

[progressoid]

3. Fuuuuuu...!!!!

[Egalitarian Thug]

4. K&R. Thanks for posting. I'm beyond the angry stage now.

They are taking us exactly where we warned everyone they were taking us, decades ago. It's a done deal, so we'd better get about the job of preparing for it.

[haele]

5. I'm not sure about the calculator.

If it asked me what I made in 2007 and calculated what I would be making now if I were part of the 1%, then I'd understand it and be angry.
Unless it "back calculates" what I'm currently making 50 years and compares it to the comperable 1% rise in rates - then I'd definately understand it.
Here's another calculation -

Comparing my starting wage in 1992 if I had taken the Journeyman Electrician's job would have been ($13.50 an hour) and a starting wage in 2012 - for a job that now requires more technical training to get a Journeyman's certification - ($11.75 an hour) at the same union shipyard is just as telling about wage inequality as it is nowadays ...

As a side, that's pretty much the equivilent comparison of what most people getting out of 2/4 years of college would be looking at.

Haele

[WillyT]

6. Kick !!!

[WillyT]

7. And BTW... According To This Model... I Should Be Making $106,761 A Year Right Now...

Where did all that money go ???

I'm ready to put almost all of it back into the economy.

Trains, airlines, hotels, restaurants, small businesses, large businesses...

Talk about voting against your own interests.

Right now... small carbon footprint, thrift stores, locally produced foods.

Who says these people have "business sense" ???