Did you notice in my last post that the income gap between rich and poor—or actually rich and everyone else—is at its highest point since the ominous year of 1928?
Yes, indeed. Total reported income in the United States increased by 9 percent in 2005, but average incomes for all but the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans were down by .6 percent.
So who got more money? Why, the top 1 percent, of course. Their incomes rose by 14 percent to an average of more than $1.1 million per household. Sweet! The top 10 percent—those who make more than $100,000—also lived off the fat of the rest of us. Nicely done, lads!
The New York Times reports:
[T]he top 300,000 Americans collectively enjoyed almost as much income as the bottom 150 million Americans. Per person, the top group received 440 times as much as the average person in the bottom half earned, nearly doubling the gap from 1980.
That sounds seriously messed up, right? Well, yeah, but it’s probably even worse for two reasons. First, the wealthiest Americans are the most likely to file late, so the data may be slightly skewed. Second—and this is my favorite—the IRS claims to “find” 99 percent of all wage income but only about 70 percent of business and investment income.
Maybe if they stopped wasting their time auditing the poor and starting auditing the rich—you know, the ones with big bucks to hide and tax advisors to tell them how to do it—they might find the untold billions of unpaid taxes on the 30 percent all profits and capital gains.
