We are the 99%
It’s the rallying cry of the occupy wall street protesters.
They say that a tiny minority controls America’s wealth.
How rich have the richest got? And how poor are the rest of us?
Is it really 99% versus the 1%?
The richest 1% of the US population own a third of US net worth.
So how did we get here?
When times were good everyone gained.
In Bill Clinton’s boom in 1993-2000 average incomes went up just like during George W. Bush boom in the beginning of his presidency and if you were rich you gained even more.
That’s nearly half of all the growth in the Clinton boom years; under George W. Bush it was even more.
And there are some really rich people in the US today.
In fact there are now over 3.1 million Millionaires but these are not the richest of all, the US has over 400 billionaires more than any other country in the world.
Who’s at the top of that pile? These three have a combined net worth of 131 billion dollars. That’s just over the combined budget short fall of every state in the US 2011.
More than the cost of the global war on terror in 2010.
But haven’t the rich lost out as well as the poor in the economic crash? When the economy tanked everyone suffered.
In 2010 the average American earned, $26, 487 dollars down over $2,000 dollars in real terms on 2006.
If you were poor its been an even bigger drop the 24 million least wealthy households in America saw there income go down 10%.
If you where super rich it went down too, the 400 wealthiest American households lost around 4% including inflation.
That’s down to an average of 270.5 million dollars per household.
So the richest lost 4% and the poorest lost 10%. Part of the reason average Americans have been hit so hard is where their wealth comes from, before the crash middle class American’s had 65% of their wealth tied up in their house.
But the richest 1% kept most of their wealth stocks and shares and business.
So when house prices went south many Americans found their wealth disappearing too.
Now one in every seven Americans lives below the poverty line that’s record 46.2 million people.
One in six American’s have no health insurance that’s 50 million people.
Of every 17 American’s at least one will be earning below the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour.
14.5% of American households are defined as food insecure that means for every 7 households one will have trouble putting enough food on the table.
But some things are doing very well sales of luxury cars are up, big luxury brands have reported their best sales figures in years
Tiffany jeweler up, brands like Loui Vuitton, brands like Gucci and Porsche.
And America’s top executives are paying themselves very well too it is down but still pretty good, $4.9 million dollars each in the latest figures.
And the Washington Post investigation found the following, since the 1970s median pay for the executives at the nations’ largest companies has more than quadrupled even after adjusting for inflation according to researchers.
Over the same period a typical non supervisory worker has dropped more than 10%.
But don’t the super rich pay taxes? They do.
Just not so much as the rest of us.
If you earn between $100,000- $200,000 dollars you will be paying up to 25% effective tax rate and that’s before payroll taxes kick in.
The 400 richest tax returns surveyed by the IRS paid just 18.1% in 2008.
And its gotten better for them in 2001 when Bush became president that rate was 21%
So is it 99% versus 1%? The richest 1% of the US own a third of US net worth.
But an even smaller group 0.01% are at a record high infact is it really 99.99% verus 0.01%
So where do you fit? Are you one of the 99.99% or are you part of the 0.01%?