Media clips
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Income inequality in the United States continues to surge. A study published by the economic policy institute found income inequality across America grew fastest between 2009 and 2015, the latest year with recorded data by the IRS. RT America’s Sara Montes de Oca reports. Conservative commentator Steve Malzberg and Robert Patillo, civil rights lawyer and talk radio host, debate the political impact. (segment starts ~10:45)
RT July 30, 2018 -
Want to join the top 1 percent of incomes earners in Colorado? The price of admission is a household income of $458,576 a year, according to a study on income inequality from the Economic Policy Institute. The median income for that elite group is closer to $1.26 million a year, or 20.6 times the median income of $61,165 for the remaining 99 percent. About 17.2 percent of the income earned in the state accrues to that small group. (whole story)
The Denver Post July 27, 2018 -
How does income inequality look at a state level? The Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank, broke down income inequality by comparing the average income to that of the top 1 percent nationally, at a state level and in various metropolitan areas. In Texas the top 1 percent earned an average of $1,343,897 annually, while the rest of the state’s population earned an average of $55,614. This means that members of the top 1 percent earn 24 times more than the average Texan. The state’s ration was the eleventh highest in the country. The report also found that Texas had the third-highest share of the national income behind California and New York. (whole story)
The Austin Statesman July 27, 2018 -
Today, the same forces the Occupiers were protesting have gained new ground. In the years since the 2007/2008 financial crisis, predatory lending, corporate tax cuts, and dark-money political groups have metastasized. Across all 50 states, inequality, according to the Economic Policy Institute, continues to grow, with the top 1 percent of families earning an average of 26.3 times as much income as the bottom 99 percent in 2015. This year, Bloomberg reported that “subprime auto debt is booming even as defaults soar,” and lenders announced that subprime home mortgages will be making a comeback rebranded as “nonprime.” Student debt hit $1.5 trillion, up from $600 billion ten years ago, and the Department of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos set out to protect debt collectors from state laws meant to protect student borrowers. Last May, Congress voted to roll back key provisions of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. And eight years after Citizens United v. FEC unleashed even more corporate money into the political process, the U.S. Treasury changed its rules so nonprofits don’t have to report their dark money donors to the IRS—right after revelations that the NRA was on the take from Russia.
GQ Magazine July 27, 2018 -
That’s hardly news to Mark Price, a Pennsylvania-based labor economist who recently coauthored a report for the D.C.-based Economic Policy Institute called “The New Gilded Age,” which found that the top 1 percent of earners in Pennsylvania make 20 times the average for the other 99 percent, the 14th worst wealth gap among the 50 states. Federal as well as state tax policies have played a big role — although not exclusively — in making this gap so much wider since the 1970s. Price said it’s increasingly obvious that the torrent of economic expansion — “putting that fifth Starbucks on every corner,” he joked — promised by the GOP/Trump tax cut didn’t happen, and isn’t going to happen. “It’s financed an expansion in CEO compensation but not financed additional investment — that’s why we’re not seeing any wage growth,” he said.
The Inquirer July 27, 2018 -
Rural Colorado is home to the most — and least — extreme income inequality in the state, according to a new study from the Economic Policy Institute. The key differentiation seems to be whether a county has a destination ski resort within its borders. The counties home to Aspen, Telluride, Steamboat Springs, and Vail top the EPI’s list, while Rio Blanco, Lake, and Teller counties are at the bottom. (whole story)
Colorado Public Radio July 27, 2018 -
Income inequality in the United States continues to grow, 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 everyone else 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. (whole story)
CNBC July 27, 2018 -
The latest edition of Prosperity Watch from Alexandra Sirota of the N.C. Budget and Tax Center highlights a new report from the Economic Policy Institute which confirms something that common sense long ago revealed — namely, the low and inadequate federal minimum wage is directly linked to North Carolina’s high poverty rate. (EPI cited throughout)
The Progressive Pulse July 27, 2018 -
A new national study finds that the rich are getting richer and leaving everyone else behind.
The study by the Economic Policy Institute, called “The New Gilded Age,” finds that the gap between the top earners and average income has widened in every state since the 1970s, with Illinois ahead of the national average. Using what it claims is the same methodology employed by French economist Thomas Piketty in his landmark 2014 book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” the study found that the average salary of the top 1 percent of U.S. earners was $1.3 million in 2015, 26.3 times the average salary of everyone else: $50,000. Illinois was one of eight states to top that disparity, but it was closest to the national average. In Illinois, the average income for the top 1 percent was $1.4 million, 27 times greater than the average salary for the other 99 percent: $52,000. (whole story)
One Illinois July 27, 2018 -
Income inequality has risen in every state since the 1970s, and in most states it has grown in the post-Great Recession years, according to a new study by the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. The report titled “The New Gilded Age: Income Inequality in the U.S. by State, Metropolitan Area, and County” finds that in 2015, the top 1 percent of households in the US brought home an average of 26.3 times as much income as the bottom 99 percent — an increase from 2013, when they earned 25.3 times as much. Authors Estelle Sommeiller, a socio-economist at the Institute for Research in Economic and Social Sciences in France, and Mark Price, an economist at Keystone Research Center in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, lay out the average incomes of the top 1 percent, the income required to be in the top 1 percent, and the gap between the top 1 percent and the bottom 99 percent in every state and county, as well as in 916 metropolitan areas. (whole story)
The Free Press July 27, 2018