This week, the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank, released a very cool analysis of how the top 1 percent of earners in each U.S. state has grown its share of income since 1979. The overarching point is that the story of American inequality isn’t just about Wall Street financiers from New York or Connecticut gobbling up an ever-growing share of the country’s economy. Rather, the affluent are pulling away from their neighbors all over the country, from Portland to Palm Beach.
Slate
January 28, 2015
For more than three decades, that upper echelon of earners has gobbled up disproportionate shares of income growth in each state, pushing income inequality to levels not seen since the 1920′s, according to a new report from the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. And while the financial sector has received much of the blame for the ever-growing gap in incomes, the trend is more widespread, the report’s authors argue: The rise in inequality experienced in the United States in the past three-and-a-half decades is not just a story of those in the financial sector in the greater New York City metropolitan area reaping outsized rewards from speculation in financial markets. While many of the highest-income taxpayers do live in states like New York and Connecticut, IRS data make clear that rising inequality and increases in top 1 percent incomes affect every state.
The Washington Post
January 27, 2015
The study was written by Estelle Sommeiller, a socioeconomist at the Institute for Research in Economic and Social Sciences in France, and Mark Price, a labor economist at the Keystone Research Center, a think tank primarily devoted to studying the economy of Pennsylvania. Their research was published by the Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Washington.
Wall Street Journal
January 27, 2015
The top 1 percent of earners are amassing a disproportionate share of the income growth in each state, driving inequality to levels not seen in decades, according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute. Between 1979 and 2007, more than half of all of the income growth in the nation went to the top 1 percent, the report found. For the bottom 99 percent of taxpayers, income grew by less than 20 percent. “The benefits of economic growth have been going increasingly to this tiny share of households,” said Mark Price, a labor economist at the Keystone Research Center and one of the authors of the report.
The Washington Post
January 27, 2015
The breakdown comes from the left-of-center Washington think tank the Economic Policy Institute, which looked at Internal Revenue Service tax data. It found that the incomes of the one percent grew faster than the incomes of the 99 percent in 49 states between 2009 and 2012. In 39 states, the majority of the income gains went to the one percent. And in 17 states, the one percent captured all of the income growth since the recession.
New York Magazine
January 27, 2015
The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank in Washington, D.C., published a new report Monday that looked at the trends in inequality over the past 95 years. The authors, Estelle Sommelier and Mark Price, also broke down income statistics geographically, looking at how much money a person must make in each state to enter into the top 1 percent. In Connecticut, for instance, a person must make nearly $700,000 to be in the top 1 percent. In Arkansas, it’s just $228,000.
The New Republic
January 27, 2015
A new report from the Economic Policy Institute demonstrates as much. In the vast majority of US states, the top 1 percent of earners captured at least half of the income gains during the first three years of the economic recovery. In seventeen states, the 1 percent raked in all of the income growth.
The Nation
January 27, 2015
On Monday, the Economic Policy Institute issues a report, “The Increasingly Unequal States of America,” that offers a new look at income inequality in states and regions of the U.S. According to the report, the average income among the top 1 percent of earners is $1.3 million a year. (Note: income includes pre-tax wages, salary, bonuses, employee compensation via asset transfer [e.g., 401k contributions or stock option grants], and investment income such as dividends, interest and capital gains; most recent income data in the report is for 2012.)
Marketplace
January 26, 2015
Huffington Post
January 26, 2015
The Guardian
January 23, 2015