Income Disparity and Sources of Income

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Andrew Kurz

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SUMMARY

Regardless of how one views the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement and “We are the 99 percent”, it has succeeded in raising awareness about wealth distribution. Also in October, 2011, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) published an analysis of household incomes addressing that subject.

 CBO first grouped households by quintiles (1/5 in each) and clearly the top fifth have done far better than the bottom fifth. CBO then divided the top 20% (fifth) into 10%, 5%, 4%, and the highest 1% of households. The income disparity was even more striking with the highest 1% far greater than the others. 

This analysis further drills down within this top 1% and finds income disparity wider yet, and vastly greater than all other group comparisons. Pre-tax income for the top 1/100 of 1%, (or 12,000 households) totaled some $450 billion, greater than the combined pre-tax income of the 24 million lowest income households. To rephrase, income of just one of these richest households is more than 2,000 lowest income households. Continue reading →

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