Before you dig out your flapper dresses and suspenders, the odds are this is a party you can’t afford to attend. A new report from the Economic Policy Institute shows that the level of income inequality in the United States and North Carolina has increased over the past several years to a point where we are now at or above the economic divide that helped to propel the world in the worst economic collapse in modern history. (whole story)
The Progressive Pulse
July 23, 2018
The average annual income in 2015 of a household in the top 1% of U.S. earners was $1.32 million, more than 26-times the average of the bottom 99%, where the average was just over $50,000. In order even to qualify as a one-percenter, a U.S. household needed an annual income of $421,926. The top 1% of households took home 22% of all U.S. income, a larger portion than at any time since 1928. In the most unequal states — New York, Florida and Connecticut — the top 1% earned more than 35 times the average of the other 99%. In the two-year period between a similar report in 2013 and the new report, the difference between incomes of the top 1% and the bottom 99% increased from 25.3 times to 26.3 times.
24/7 Wall St.
July 23, 2018
The gap between the rich and everyone else is only getting wider. That’s according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), which used the latest available data to analyze how the top 1 percent and the bottom 99 percent across the U.S. have fared between 1917 and 2015. “In 2015, the top 1 percent of families in the U.S. earned, on average, 26.3 times as much income as the bottom 99 percent — an increase from 2013, when they earned 25.3 times as much,” the EPI reports. And in some areas, the gap is even more severe. In the Jackson, Wyoming, metro area, home to the luxurious Jackson Hole ski resort, the top 1 percent earns an astonishing 132 times more than the bottom 99 percent. (whole story)
CNBC
July 20, 2018
The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, at least in the United States. The top 1 percent of families took home an average of 26.3 times as much income as the bottom 99 percent in 2015, according to a new paper released by the Economic Policy Institute, a non-profit, nonpartisan think tank in Washington, D.C. This has increased since 2013, showing that income inequality has risen in nearly every state. (whole story)
CNBC
July 20, 2018
The gap between the rich and the poor in America has ballooned over the last several decades. In 2015, the top 1% of Americans made 26.3 times as much income as the bottom 99 percent — an increase from 2013, when they earned 25.3 times as much, according to a study released Thursday from the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning Washington, D.C. think tank. A family needed an annual income of $421,926 to be part of the 1% nationally, the study said, but in some states the threshold was higher. The top 1% of Americans took home more than 22% of all income in 2015, the study found. That’s the highest share since a peak of 23.9% just before the Great Depression in 1928. (whole story)
MarketWatch
July 20, 2018
The map was created by the Economic Policy Institute to go along with their report on income inequality across America. Their report found that income inequality has risen in almost every state since the 1970s. Other findings from the study:
- From 2009 to 2015, the incomes of the top 1% grew faster than the incomes of the bottom 99% in 43 states and the District of Columbia.
- The top 1% captured half or more of all income growth in nine states.
In 2015, a family in the top 1% nationally received, on average, 26.3 times as much income as a family in the bottom 99%. (whole story)
Fast Company
July 20, 2018
Massachusetts has the sixth-biggest gap between its highest-paid residents and everyone else, according to a new report, with the state’s top 1 percent of families in 2015 earning 31 times what the average of the bottom 99 percent made. The analysis, out Thursday from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute, cites tax data to examine income inequality by state, metro area and county. Its methodology uses income before taxes and transfers, like unemployment benefits. The average income of the top 1 percent of families in Massachusetts in 2015 was $1.9 million, according to EPI. That’s about 31 times the average income of everyone else that year, which was around $62,000. (whole story)
WBUR
July 20, 2018
All politics, the old political saw goes, is local. By the same token, all economics may be local, too. We don’t experience our economy as a national or a global phenomenon. We experience our economic life in much more localized spheres. Researchers at the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based progressive think tank, have understood this reality for decades now. They’ve supplemented their nationally focused work with a series of landmark collaborations that explore how our unequal economic order is playing out at the subnational level. (whole story)
Inequality.org
July 20, 2018
Who is the “1 percent?” In Louisiana, it’s a household earning at least $318,393 per year. A new report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute offers easy-to-read data on income inequality (the unequal distribution of income among people who are making money) throughout the U.S., examined by state, city and metropolitan area. Authors Estelle Sommeiller and Mark Price echo the conclusion of many other economists: in most states and nationwide, incomes for a very small group of households are growing much faster than incomes for the remaining 99 percent of households. In nine states, just 1 percent of families has captured half or more of all income growth since the Great Recession. (whole story)
The Advocate
July 20, 2018
A new report from the Economic Policy Institute highlighting wage disparities between whites and Hispanics across the United States shows a wage gap that has remained steady since 2000. Local data show that the wage gap is even wider in Oklahoma, something local agencies are working to address.
In 2017, Hispanic men working full time made 14.9 percent less in hourly wages than comparable white men, while Hispanic women made 33.1 percent less than comparable white men, according to the report. (whole story)
Tulsa World
July 20, 2018