BERKELEY, Calif., Feb. 16 (UPI) — Wages grew 11.2 percent for top U.S. earners as the economy recovered in 2011, but fell 0.4 percent for all others, an economics researcher said.
A report authored by University of California, Berkeley, economist Emmanuel Saez says U.S. incomes rose 1.7 percent overall in data that include 2011, The New York Times reported Saturday.
Lawrence Mishel, president of the non-profit, non-partisan Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, told the newspaper the way the top 1 percent and the bottom 99 percent earn money accounts for much of the disparity — with the wealthy cashing in on stock market growth and wage earners paying the price for high unemployment.
“That high unemployment we know depresses wage growth throughout the wage scale,” Mishel said, “but more so for the bottom than the middle and the middle than the top.”
Saez said “the Great Recession has only depressed top income shares temporarily and will not undo any of the dramatic increase in top income shares that has taken place since the 1970s.”
Saez’s report suggests the income-growth figures for 2012 will resemble those for 2011.
Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).
Let me expalin how taxes work. The little guy pays a bigger percentage of taxes and the bigger guy gets the pay out of those taxes. Even Leona Helmsly knew the little man pays the taxes. Payroll taxes. Don’t let them fool you. We all pay more taxes than just income tax.
This what happen when the government tries to control everything. No matter what Obuma and the Democrats say about helping the middle class and the poor, they are protecting themselves and their friends. These numbers prove it.
@Tim-My opinion is Obama is correct when he wants to close those tax loopholes. Why have taxes if you can just go around them? Where I differ is where the extra taxes should be used.
Amazing, a suspect not one of you are in this income group. Thanks a a lot, it’s like taking candy from a baby. Even chumps are fighting for my right to have more money.
I’m not so much for taxing the rich more as I am for taxing the poor less. There are “working poor” that work very hard and are just as diligent as the owner or CEO. So don’t call the poor “lazy”. Because not all are. Someone has to work those poor paying jobs. Some of you don’t even realize what those jobs are. Rich people depend on those “working poor” people. The least they could do is appreciate them instead of looking down their noses at them.
People that want to tax the rich are nothing more than selfish, lazy, jealous, spiteful, and hateful people that lack the fortitude to educate and apply themselves to make it in their own right.
They would rather take it away from someone who is successful!
Jerks!
The same could be said for people who wants to tax anyone couldn’t it? The money is not taken from the rich and given to the poor. It’s given to pentagon to siphon off of. How else can $20 Billion simply go missing…poof..into thin air.
Any report that comes out of University California Berkeley is suspect. However, the old adage of the rich get richer and the poor get poorer is true. The rich have the money and resources to invest in money making projects. The poor and middle income have to rely on their jobs to make income. Huge difference here and probably always will be.
I think both of you are being dupped. All either side wants to do is smash mouth each other with We the People in the middle. Our economy problem is very easy to fix. Put more of the existing money into play. There are numerous ways of accomplishing this but yet somehow it doesn’t get done. We need to fire 548 positions in DC, revamp the job descriptions, put a muzzle on the bias’d press and move forward. This is rediculous.
Sounds like Iraq or Iran or China. I agree we need to do something but who is going to write that new job description? If we “muzzle” the press, then who decides what will and won’t be ‘news’? You? I hope not.
geez happy get a room, you are so much in love with this guy that you completely ignore the fact that the policies that they are using is obamas idea. Sure maybe the republicans wanted some change in the tax the rich but we have no idea why they wanted change, possibly they wanted the limits to change we don’t know. So everything that the dems wanted they basically got and when they find out that it doesn’t work you blame it aLL on the republicans.
and thus proves once more that “trickle down economics” does not work. Plus it proves that under taxing the rich, the so called job creators also doesn’t work. These are 2 of the principles that are at the heart of the GOP. Wealthy people will hoard their money unless forced to invest it.
Yea lets FORCE them to pay by god that will teach them to become successful. Lets take all the incentive away from becoming successfull. You didnt mean invest did you? You meant give up to the government. You dont mention the Menidezs, Jack Lew, Blagovich, Jesse Jr’s, John Heinz Kerry, Soros all from the left that very much want to keep their money. We are in the second term of Obama, things should have been fixed, but evil Bush screwed it up so bad. He has helped nothing. Why is it that Obama always talks of the poor but himself has lived with and around money his whole life? That is who votes for him. Lets take from the rich give to the poor allow millions of ILLEGALS amnesty make govenment so huge we are no longer a Republic but a people that depends on government for every little thing we need.
“Wealthy people will hoard their money unless forced to invest it.”
Ture words. Taxing the “Wealthy people” reduces the money they have availible to invest. Taxing the “Wealthy people” will also cause them to reduce the money invest to lower their tax liability.
Monies taken by taxation has never benn used as an investment to create jobs.
Then why are my property tax dollars going to the EDC?