<p><a href=“The Benefits of Economic Expansions Are Increasingly Going to the Richest Americans - The New York Times”>The Benefits of Economic Expansions Are Increasingly Going to the Richest Americans - The New York Times;
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<p>No, I’m not…</p>
<p><a href=“http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/United_States_Income_Distribution_1967-2003.svg”>http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/a/a7/United_States_Income_Distribution_1967-2003.svg</a></p>
<p>That’s inflation adjusted. Basically shows that the bottom 20% are roughly as well off as the bottom 20% were for decades, everyone else is better off. </p>
<p>Please don’t use the wiki. </p>
<p>Vlad, the last several years have been pretty bad for 50 percent of the population. Those years aren’t reflected in your charts. </p>
<p>I look at that chart and I see 50 percent of the population going nowhere for 35 years. That is a long time to go nowhere.</p>
<p>I’m 58. When I was 28, our annual income was under $25,000 and we were able to live comfortably, though frugally, on one income. We were not worried about health insurance costs or medical bills. They were low costs relative to income. We could afford to buy a house. We could afford the mortgage on the house. We had no student loan debt, nor did almost anyone else we knew. And we were the generation that benefited from our parents’ post war wealth building, especially real estate appreciation.</p>
<p>My take as a non-economist.</p>
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<p>If the poor were poorer than 30 years ago then there’s an argument. But they’re not. They’re roughly as well off and everyone else is better off. I don’t see how this is controversial. I’m not trying to make a statement that better can’t be done or anything like that. </p>
<p>I am 63. When I was in college, most of my cohort just knew that we would have good jobs if we were willing to work. Most of us did well, and it was easy to point to the reasons that some didn’t do well (at that time, usually drugs). Do kids today feel that way? </p>
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<p><a href=“http://www.edtrust.org/dc/press-room/news/among-us-households-1-in-5-has-student-loan-debt”>http://www.edtrust.org/dc/press-room/news/among-us-households-1-in-5-has-student-loan-debt</a></p>
<p>I don’t know if this is true, but it seems true to me.</p>
<p>adding: Vladenschlutte, I’m not interested in trying to prove you wrong. I am sure you are much smarter than I am; all I have going for me is life experience. Your perspective concerns me. I am wondering if you figured out how much childcare costs yet (feminist thread) and again, not picking at you. I’m pretending you are one of my own kids’ buddies.</p>
<p>Vlad, your chart ends in 2003. 50 percent of the population hasn’t gone anywhere since 1978. I don’t know why you keep talking about poor people
Maybe, we should go back longer… 1973.</p>
<p>This is a Bloomberg story. It is a couple of years old. I am pretty sure income inequality hasn’t narrowed.</p>
<p><a href=“http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-02/top-1-got-93-of-income-growth-as-rich-poor-gap-widened.html”>http://mobile.bloomberg.com/news/2012-10-02/top-1-got-93-of-income-growth-as-rich-poor-gap-widened.html</a></p>
<p>This is amazing…</p>
<p>“From 1979 to 2007, about $1.1 trillion in annual income shifted to the top 1 percent of Americans – more than the entire earnings of the bottom 40 percent, according to Alan Krueger, chairman of Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers and an economics professor at Princeton University. If income were distributed as it was in 1979, there might be $440 billion in additional spending each year – a 5 percent boost to consumption, he said in January.”</p>
<p>“Very few very successful people have their wealth passed on for more then 3 generations (only examples I can think of are the Rockefellers, Rothschilds, and literal royalty). And we’re all better off now than people were a generation ago.”</p>
<p>Vlad, your definition of very successful people is quite restrictive, and in fact seems to apply only to people you’ve heard of. There are many very wealthy people who are in the 4th and 5th generations. They just don’t happen to be people whom you know. The levels of success varies, depending on whether the kids do things in business or politics, but the wealth is there. It’s protected by trusts, low estate taxes, and tax-advantaged holdings that working people don’t use. </p>
<p>^and am I understanding while that wealth has been protected, the lower middle class and lower class has taken on more debt, and that they have been encouraged to take on that debt by those whose wealth is increasing?</p>
<p>"“So-called”? The OWS movement wasn’t directed at the so-called rich. The movement was directed at a system which lends itself to the rich and powerful writing a tax code which makes them richer and more powerful, while at the same time opposing minimum wage increases, resulting in ever-greater gaps between the uber wealthy and the working poor. The people in the middle of those two groups end up scrabbling over what’s left"</p>
<p>Then certainly the organizers of the Occupy Wall Street movement screwed up big time when they made their rallying call against the 1%. Maybe it was a good sound bite, but I think they lost a lot of momentum when people realized that the evil 1% was mostly made up of highly paid (and highly taxed) working people, small business owners, doctors, lawyers, dual income professionals. Not the people that have any power in this system.</p>
<p>A less catchy sound bite would have been the 99.99 % against the 0.01%, and if they really were trying to buck a system that caters to the uber wealthy, they should have figured that out. I think in the end, they had no idea of what they stood for, but just knew that others had more than they did.</p>
<p>Busdriver11, i don’t think you get something.</p>
<p>50 percent of the country haven’t gone anywhere for 35 years… Maybe more. </p>
<p>The 50 percent aren’t jealous. They want to participate in the growth of the economy. 35 years is a long time. The one percent compared to the 50 percent have done extremely well over this time period .</p>
<p>I did write earlier that 99/1 doesn’t sell and that 99.9/.1 or 99.99/.01 may sell better. </p>
<p>Sooner or later, people are going to get fed up. People are flailing now. It is not jeslousy. </p>
<p>The game is stacked. </p>
<p>My post was about the OWS Movement, and part of why I think it failed. I agree with your point, but I don’t think it is relevant to mine. They came across as a bunch of jealous, lazy brats who wanted to be given more. There many have been some valid points in there, but they were diluted by too many messages, and messages they probably didn’t want to portray, and too many people didn’t even know what their message was. Had they portrayed themselves as you did, they would have been more successful.</p>
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<p>The 3 generations thing came from study that I read. I know there are plenty more I haven’t heard of, but the point is that you can think of more very rich dynasties that went bust than those that survived.</p>
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<p><a href=“http://www.cbpp.org/images/cms/11-28-11pov-f1.png”>http://www.cbpp.org/images/cms/11-28-11pov-f1.png</a></p>
<p>This chart goes until 2012. It shows that in 2012, the 20th percentile is roughly as well off as they were in 1973, the rest are better off. </p>
<p>Middle and lower income groups brought this upon themselves by voting in union busters and free traders. This is just the beginning. Wait till middle management jobs start going offshore too. It’s already happening.</p>
<p>Vlad, your new chart is 27 years of practically no increase for the median.</p>
<p>How old are you? Since my daughter was born there has been zero increase in median real incomes. </p>
<p>Busdriver11, were the protesters jealous, portrayed that way, or is this your take?</p>
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<p>I’m 24, so about 10% increase for the median in my lifetime. </p>