The vast and growing disparity between the have-muches and the have-littles in this country is corrosive and divisive and cannot continue.
Everybody has gone up. The highest paid people went up at egregious rates. (Have you seen those bonuses to Fannie and Freddie executives ? Fannie and Freddie just asked for billions more of YOUR tax dollars as they’re even more insolvent and poorly run than they thought.)
Around 40% for the bulk of the population ain’t bad.
CBO finds that between 1979 and 2007:
* For the 1 percent of the population with the highest income, average real after-tax household income grew by 275 percent (see figure below).
* For others in the 20 percent of the population with the highest income, average real after-tax household income grew by 65 percent.
* For the 60 percent of the population in the middle of the income scale, the growth in average real after-tax household income was just under 40 percent.
* For the 20 percent of the population with the lowest income, the growth in average real after-tax household income was about 18 percent.
