"From 1992 to 2007 the top 400 earners in the U.S. saw their income increase 392% and their average tax rate reduced by 37%. The share of total income in America going to the top 1% of American households (also after federal taxes and income transfers) increased from 11.3% in 1979 to 20.9% in 2007. A 2013 study by Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez et al., notes that the rise in the share of total annual income received by the top 1%, which has more than doubled since 1976, has had a significant effect on overall income inequality. It states: "It is tempting to dismiss the study of this group as a passing political fad due to the slogans of the Occupy movement or as the academic equivalent of reality TV. But the magnitudes are truly substantial." Also in 2013, the Economic Policy Institute noted that even though corporate profits are at historic highs, the wage and benefit growth of the vast majority has stagnated. The fruits of overall growth have accrued disproportionately to the top 1%."
During the Great Recession of 2007–2009, inequality declined, with total income going to the bottom 99 percent of Americans declining by 11.6%, but falling faster (36.3%) for the top 1%.
However, disparity in income increased again during the 2009–2010 recovery, with
the top 1% of income earners capturing 11.6% of income and capital gains, and the income of the other 99% remained flat, growing by only 0.2%. 60% of earners in the top 0.1 percent are executives, managers, supervisors, and financial professionals. More than half of them work in closely held businesses. The top 1 percent is composed of many professions, the five most common professions being managers, physicians, administrators, lawyers, and financial specialists. Doctors are more likely than any other profession to be in the 1 percent. According to PolitiFact and others,
400 Americans have more wealth than half of all Americans combined.
OECD's study
in May 2013 said the richest 10 percent of society in OECD countries pocketed 9.5 times as much market income as the poorest 10 percent in 2010, up from 9 times in 2007. It also stated that the widest gap between rich and poor was found in Chile, Mexico, Turkey and the United States. By contrast, Iceland, Slovenia, Norway and Denmark were the most egalitarian societies.
Upward redistribution of income is responsible for about 43% of the projected Social Security shortfall over the next 75 years.
Rising income inequality has been linked to the political polarization in Washington DC. According to a 2013 study published in the Political Research Quarterly, elected officials tend to be more responsive to the upper income bracket and ignore lower income groups.
"Lisa Shalett of Merrill Lynch Wealth Management found that real average hourly earnings in the US "are essentially flat to down, with today’s inflation-adjusted wage equating to about the same level as that attained by workers in 1970", despite the fact that "for the last two decades and especially in the current period", productivity has "soared". The benefits of productivity during this cycle had gone "almost exclusively to corporations and their very top executives."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_inequality_in_the_United_States
