Top 1% Of Earners Doubled Their Share Of The Nation's Income Over Last 30 Years, Says Government Study
The top 1% of earners more than doubled their share of the nation’s income over the last three decades, the Congressional Budget Office said Tuesday.
In a new report likely to figure prominently in the escalating political fight over how to revive the economy, create jobs and lower the federal debt, the report says government policy has become less redistributive since the late 1970s, doing less to reduce the concentration of income.
According to The New York Times, the CBO found that from 1979 to 2007, average inflation-adjusted after-tax income grew by 275 percent for the 1 percent of the population with the highest income. For others in the top 20 percent of the population, average real after-tax household income grew by 65 percent. By contrast, the budget office said, for the poorest fifth of the population, average real after-tax household income rose 18 percent.