Table 2
Change in wage groups' shares of total wages, 1979–2011
| Share of annual wages | Change in share | ||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Wage group | 1979 | 2004 | 2007 | 2009 | 2011 | 1979– 2004 |
1979– 2007 |
2007– 2011 |
1979– 2011 |
| Bottom 90% | 69.8% | 62.5% | 61.1% | 62.3% | 61.2% | -7.3 | -8.8 | 0.1 | -8.6 |
| Bottom fifth | 3.8 | 3.3 | – | – | – | -0.5 | – | – | – |
| Second fifth | 9.4 | 8.1 | – | – | – | -1.3 | – | – | – |
| Middle fifth | 15.6 | 13.6 | – | – | – | -2.0 | – | – | – |
| Fourth fifth | 24.1 | 21.4 | – | – | – | -2.8 | – | – | – |
| Next tenth | 17.0 | 16.1 | – | – | – | -0.9 | – | – | – |
| 90th to 99th percentile | 22.8% | 24.6% | 24.9% | 25.5% | 25.7% | 1.8 | 2.0 | 0.8 | 2.9 |
| 90–95 | 10.8 | 10.9 | 10.8 | 11.2 | 11.2 | 0.1 | 0.1 | 0.4 | 0.5 |
| 95–99 | 12.1 | 13.8 | 14.1 | 14.3 | 14.5 | 1.7 | 2.0 | 0.4 | 2.4 |
| Top 1.0% | 7.3% | 12.9% | 14.1% | 12.2% | 13.1% | 5.6 | 6.7 | -1.0 | 5.8 |
| 99.0–99.5 | 2.6 | 3.3 | – | – | – | 0.8 | – | – | – |
| 99.5–99.9 | 3.1 | 4.7 | – | – | – | 1.5 | – | – | – |
| 99.9–100 (Top 0.1%) | 1.6 | 4.9 | 5.7 | 4.3 | 4.7 | 3.3 | 4.0 | -0.9 | 3.1 |
Source: Authors' analysis of Kopczuk, Saez, and Song (2010) and Social Security Administration wage statistics
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