Sen. Bernie Sanders. (photo: AP)
The 1%
Are Recovering From 2008 Recession While 99% Are Still Waiting
By Jana Kasperkevic,
Guardian UK
07 July 16
In 2015, the income of the 99% grew by just 3.9% – ‘the best real
income growth in 17 years’ – while the rich saw growth was twice that at 7.7%
The
top 1% of Americans are finally recovering from the great recession. A new analysis of IRS
data revealed that the average income of the top 1% of income earners grew by
7.7% in 2015, reaching $1.36m.
Report
author Emmanuel Saez, an economics professor at the University of
California-Berkeley, calculated earlier this year that the top 1% had an
average income of $1.26m in 2014. And though
the world’s wealthiest were able to raise that income to $1.36m within one
year, they are still not making as much as they were just before the 2008
recession.
Saez
revealed that in 2015, the rich were also taking home larger chunk of the US
income. “The share of income going to the top 10% of income earners – those
making on average about $300,000 a year – increased to 50.5% in 2015 from 50.0%
in 2014, the highest ever except for 2012,” Saez wrote.
“The
share of income going to the top 1% of families – those earning on average
about $1.4m a year – increased to 22% in 2015 from 21.4% in 2014.”
According
to him, while the 1% power ahead and continue to reclaim income lost during the
recession, a full recovery for the bottom 99% remains elusive. “Six years after
the end of the Great Recession, those families have recovered only about 60% of
their income losses due to that severe economic downturn,” he said.
It
should not come as a shock that to many Americans talk of economic recovery
rings hollow. The top 1% of families saw their income grow by 37% between 2009
to 2015, from $990,000 to $1.36m. The incomes of the other 99%, however, grew
by just 7.6% during that time – from $45,300 in 2009 to $48,800 in 2015.
In
2015, the income of the 99% grew by just 3.9%. After factoring in inflation,
Saez calls it: “the best real income growth in 17 years”. And the rich? At
7.7%, their growth was twice that.
Economy remains a top concern for
US voters, according to a recent Gallup survey of 1,530 adults. More than 90%
of them said that economy was extremely important to them and 89% of them said
the same of jobs and employment.
The
income inequality has not escaped the attention of the Obama White House or
those vying to succeed him.
“Inequality
is still too high,” Barack Obama said in June while
speaking about the US economy in Elkhart, Indiana. “The gap between rich and
poor is bigger now than it’s been just about any time since the 1920s.”
For
much of his two-term presidency, Obama has been pushing the US Congress to
raise the federal minimum wage in hopes that it would raise incomes of the
poorest Americans. Both former secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Vermont
senator Bernie Sanders, who are running for president as Democrats, have pushed
for higher minimum wage and spoken about income inequality on the campaign
trail.
The
uneven recovery is one of the reasons that experts say this presidential
election cycle has seen the rise of Donald Trump and a contentious race for the
Democratic nomination.
C 2015 Reader Supported News
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"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives."
Eugene Victor Debs
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