Score card: 16% vs. 288%

From Edward Fullbrook 

David Ruccio‘s post yesterday on the 34-year (and still continuing) period of radical income redistribution in the United States featured a graph from a new report from the Economic Policy Institute. Below, from the same EPI report, is a table no less shocking than yesterday’s graph. 

Change in annual wages, by wage group, 1979–2011 (2011 dollars)

	Average annual wages (2011 dollars)					Change
Wage group	1979	2004	2007		2011	1979– 2004			1979– 2011
Bottom 90%	$27,110	$31,344	$31,626		$31,050	16%			15%
Bottom fifth	6,569	7,471	–		–	14			–
Second fifth	16,369	18,192	–		–	11			–
Middle fifth	27,236	30,787	–		–	13			–
Fourth fifth	42,173	48,234	–		–	14			–
Next tenth	59,293	72,724	–		–	23			–
90th to 99th percentile	$88,670	$123,588	$128,857		$130,473	39%			47%
90–95	75,191	98,319	100,801		102,429	31			36
95–99	105,519	155,175	163,927		165,527	47			57
Top 1.0%	$255,760	$580,976	$655,171		$598,570	127%			134%
99.0–99.5	179,591	299,742	–		–	67			–
99.5–99.9	272,532	525,903	–		–	93			–
99.9–100 (Top 0.1%)	569,521	2,207,437	2,633,800		2,158,892	288			279

Source: Authors’ analysis of Kopczuk, Saez, and Song (2010) and Social Security Administration wage statistics

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