Working Americans have long complained about a middle-class squeeze, but families focused on their day-to-day financial struggles may not always see how much ground has actually been lost.
EPI data tracking income and wage patterns show that the majority of income growth has for decades gone to a startlingly small number of top earners, while other workers have suffered a persistent stagnation or even decline in real earnings. While many middle-income families have lost jobs, homes, and retirement savings during the latest recession, their economic woes date back much further.
This pattern is best illustrated in the following chart, which shows that 34.6% of all income growth over the past three decades has gone to the top one-tenth of 1% of all earners—an exclusive group representing just 13,000 families. By contrast, the bottom 90% of all earners has collectively seen only 15.9% of all income growth over the same period:
55% of all income gains have been made by the top 1% of income earners in the past 30 years.
Without redistribution of those dollars 1/3 of the income gains for the nation goes to 13,000 people who make up top one tenth of 1% of the population.