Posts
After-tax income increased by 275% for the wealthiest 1% of Americans
After-tax income increased by 18% for the poorest 20%
in 2005-2007, right before the Great Recession, the top 20% of the population earned more after-tax income than the entire bottom 80%...
The obvious case that some will make in light of these statistics is that they deserve it. They work harder, they make the right decisions.
Am I to believe that I am that much lazier and that much more ignorant?It feels like I work really hard every day; I'm certainly very tired at the end of a day...
I certainly don't see a 275% increase in my after-tax income ANYtime soon.
Maybe the wealth isn't trickling back down after all...
Don't get me wrong... I don't feel entitled to an increase in my income. If you think about it on a world wide scale, I live a pretty fantastic life full of wonderful toys and comforts beyond the wildest dreams of billions of people.
What drives me nuts is that a vast amount of the 'wealth' in this country has been pooled among 1% of Americans and they have turned our elections into a war of campaign donations while appointing themselves to positions of power so they can use tax payer's money to 'bail' each other 'out.'
They've even stopped paying a reasonable amount of taxes. Again, don't get me wrong, I'm a staunch opponent of high taxes for everyone and loathe big governments.
Alas, we all have to pay our share of taxes to keep the system going. It wasn't until GE paid absolutely $0 (ZERO) in taxes on $5.1 BILLION in profits in 2010 that I realized maybe, just maybe, not everyone was paying their share of taxes.
The statistics from our own government:
http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/124xx/doc12485/10-25-HouseholdIncome.pdf
