For Immediate Release: Wednesday, October 19, 2011
Contact: Phoebe Silag or Karen Conner, news@epi.org 202-775-8810

Data on income gains support 99ers’ gripes

The Occupy Wall Street protesters, dubbed the 99ers to represent the “99 percent” of Americans left behind economically, can back up their claims with economic data. Today’s Snapshot shows that from 1979 to 2007, inflation-adjusted incomes of the top 1 percent of households increased 224 percent while the top 0.1 percent (the top one-one thousandth of households), saw their incomes skyrocket by 390 percent. In contrast, incomes for the bottom 90 percent grew just 5 percent between 1979 and 2007.