The Rich Get Richer

Income Gap is Widening, Data Shows

An analysis of American incomes was recently conducted by two college economics professors, one at the University of California, Berkeley and the other from the Paris School of Economics. The study showed the inequality that is ever growing between the high-income and low-income American households. Data from 2005, the most recent available numbers, was used to look at the growing difference between the rich and the poor that has widened. The total income in the United States rose nine percent in 2005, with most of the wealth going to the top ten percent. While income rose by such a factor, the rest of the ninety percent of the country’s income dropped six-tenths of a percent. Also, the top 300,000 Americans make as much money as the bottom 150 million. A person in the top range received 440 times as much as a person of the lower range. While staggering figures, some say that they are a direct result of the Bush administration’s policy towards the rich and poor. Others pass it off as simply the technological advances that by nature benefit the richer people. However, tax breaks for the wealthy have allowed them to grow, while the less fortunate suffer, all under the watch of a man who’s six-figure salary will put him in the top one percent of his beloved American people.

The top ten percent of Americans control nearly half (48.5%) of the wealth. The number has not been that high since the pre-Depression era. While we look at the lack of distribution of wealth now and see an issue, it was much worse in the Gilded Age. Then, the top ten percent controlled around ninety percent of the nation’s wealth. Also back then, the government supported the economic boom that sugarcoated the actual gap between the rich and the not so rich. Reasons behind that period of economic growth were similar to the growth of the rich today. Technology made it easier for jobs to be completed, and advanced the capacity for work done. Also, the genius of some men has not only moved them to the top of the income charts, but also has allowed them to create whole new industries that further the economic benefit, sometimes of all.