🚀 go-pugleaf

The Decline of America: Class-War Against Middle Class & Poor (II)


=================================================
Richest 1% doubles its income relative bottom 40% ;
Middle-class share of income lowest since WWII :
=================================================

    The gap between rich and poor widened so much in the 1980s that
    the richest 1 percent receive nearly as much of Americans' total
    income after taxes as the bottom 40 percent, a liberal (*)
    research group said Monday.

    [(*): "The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities is a non-profit
    research organization that specializes in issues affecting the
    poor", the article later says]

    The bottom 40% will receive 14.2% of total after-tax income
    received by all groups in 1990, while the top 1% will receive
    12.6%, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said.

    "This marks a sharp change from 1980, when the top 1 percent
    received half as much after-tax income as the bottom 40 percent,"
    according to the report, which was based on an analysis of the
    congressional Budget Office data on income and taxes.

    "The share of income going to those Americans in the middle of the
    income scale is lower than at any time since the end of World War
    II...The report also said the richest 2.5 million people have
    nearly as much total income as the 100 million Americans with the
    lowest incomes...

[From: "Study Of Income Gap Finds Rich Get Richer," Chicago Tribune,
July 24, 1990, p.5]