Fri Oct 12, 2:48 AM ET
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The richest one percent of Americans earned a postwar record of 21.2 percent of all income in 2005, up from 19 percent a year earlier, reflecting a widening income disparity among different classes in the nation, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing new Internal Revenue Service data.
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The data showed that the fortunes of the bottom 50 percent of Americans are worsening, with that group earning 12.8 percent of all income in 2005, down from 13.4 percent the year before, the paper said.
It said that while the IRS data goes back only to 1986, academic research suggests that the last time wealthy Americans had such a high percentage of the national income pie was in the 1920s.
The article cited an interview with President Bush, who attributed income inequality to "skills gaps" among various classes. It said the IRS didn't identify the source of rising income for the affluent, but said a boom on Wall Street has likely played a part.
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1 comment:
um, I know you're only reporting the news, not necessarily writing it, but there's a difference between income and wealth.
The "richest" and "poorest" are statements of wealth, not income. Perhaps what you meant to say was "those with the highest incomes" and "those with the lowest incomes". I know it doesn't read as smoothly, but it's more accurate, I think. Unless you REALLY mean that they measured people's WEALTH, and THEN looked at their income (which I doubt).
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