Record high income in 2017 for top one percent of wage earners in US
By Gabriel Black
20 October 2018
In 2017, the top one percent of US wage earners received their highest paychecks ever, according to a report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI).
Based on newly released data from the Social Security Administration, the EPI shows that the top one percent of the population saw their paychecks increase by 3.7 percent in 2017—a rate nearly quadruple the bottom 90 percent of the population. The growth was driven by the top 0.1 percent, which includes many CEOs and corporate executives, whose pay increased eight percent and averaged $2,757,000 last year.
The EPI report is only the latest exposure of the gaping inequality between the vast majority of the population and the modern-day aristocracy that rules over them.
The EPI shows that the bottom 90 percent of wage earners have increased their pay by 22.2 percent between 1979 and 2017. Today, this bottom 90 percent makes an average of just $36,182 a year, which is eaten up by the cost of housing and the growing burden of education, health care, and retirement.
Meanwhile, the top one percent has increased its wages by 157 percent during this same period, a rate seven times faster than the other group. This top segment makes an average of $718,766 a year. Those in-between, the 90th to 99th percentile, have increased their wages by 57.4 percent. They now make an average of $152,476 a year—more than four times the bottom 90 percent.
Graph from the Economic Policy Institute
Decades of decaying capitalism have led to this accelerating divide. While the rich accumulate wealth with no restriction, workers’ wages and benefits have been under increasing attack. In 1979, 90 percent of the population took in 70 percent of the nation’s income. But, by 2017, that fell to only 61 percent.
Even more, while the bottom 90 percent of the population may take in 61 percent of the wages, large sections of the workforce today barely pull in any income at all. For example, Social Security Administration data found that the bottom 54 percent of wage earners in the United States, 89.5 million people, make an average of just $15,100 a year. This 54 percent of the population earns only 17 percent of all wages paid in America.
However unequal, these wage inequalities still do not fully present the divide between rich and poor. The ultra-wealthy derive their wealth not primarily from wages, but from assets and equities—principally from the stock market. While the bottom 90 percent of the population made 61 percent of the wages in 2017, they owned even less, just 27 percent of the wealth (according to the World Inequality Report 2018 by Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez, and Gabriel Zucman).
The massive increase in the value of the stock market, which only a small segment of the population participates in, means that the top 10 percent of the population controls 73 percent of all wealth in the United States. Just three men—Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates—had more wealth than the bottom half of America combined last year.
Wages are so low in the United States that roughly half of the population falls deeper into debt every year. A Reuters report from July found that the pretax net income (that is, income minus expense) of the bottom 40 percent of the population was an average of negative $11,660. Even the middle quintile of the population, the 40th to 60th percentile, breaks even with an average of only $2,836 a year.
As the Social Security Administration numbers show, 67.4 percent of the population made less than the average wage, $48,250 a year in 2017, a sum that is inadequate to support a family in many cities—especially, with high housing costs, health care, education, and retirement factored in.
For the ruling class, though, workers’ wages are already too much. The volatility of the stock market and the deep fear that the current bull market will collapse has made politicians and businessmen anxious of any sign of wage increases.
In August, wages in the US rose just 0.2 percent above the inflation rate, the highest in nine years. Though the increase was tiny, it was enough to encourage the Federal Reserve to increase the interest rate past two percent for the first time since 2008. Raising interest rates helps to depress workers’ wages by lowering borrowing and spending. As the Financial Times noted, stopping wage growth was “central” to the Federal Reserve’s move.
Further analysis of the Social Security Administration data shows that in 2017, 147,754 people reported wages of 1 million dollars or more—roughly, the top 0.05 percent. Their combined total income of $372 billion could pay for the US federal education budget five times over.
These wages, however large, still pale in comparison to the money the ultra-rich acquire from the stock market. For example, share buybacks and dividend payments, a way of funneling money to shareholders, will eclipse $1 trillion this year.
Whatever the immediate source, the wealth of the rich derives from the great mass of people who do the actual work. Across the United States and around the world, workers, young people, and students have entered into struggle this year over pay, education, health care, immigration, war and democratic rights. This growing movement of the working class must set as its aim confiscating the wealth and power of this tiny parasitic oligarchy. Society’s wealth must be democratically controlled by those who produce it.
Graph from the Economic Policy Institute
Money Determine How
Long You Live?
A recent survey reports that the rich expect to live to 100 with
a lengthy retirement.
BY , HEALTHLINE
How long we will live is one of the biggest mysteries in life. No one
can know for sure.
According to the UBS Investor Watch, which
tracks insights of more than 5,000 people with at least $1 million in assets, 9
out of 10 people surveyed stated that
they are making changes to their spending and long-term investments in order to
finance their anticipated longevity.
But should they make those plans just because they are rich?
“Average life expectancy has been going up at the population level, but
there is mounting evidence that the increases have been larger for high
socioeconomic status groups,” Susann Rohwedder, senior economist and associate
director at RAND Center for the Study of Aging, told Healthline.
She adds that the wealthy have, statistically speaking, a greater chance
to make it to 100, so planning for this possibility is reasonable.
At the same time, there is uncertainty associated with each person’s
length of life, and that averages, even if calculated for separate groups such
as the wealthy, mask large variations across people.
Why Do the Rich Live Longer?
Life expectancy in all industrialized nations has increased over the
years.
However, Dr. David Himmelstein, co-founder of the Physicians for a
National Health Program and a lecturer in medicine at Harvard Medical School,
says that at the broad population level, it is clear that having money will
help you live longer.
He does note that it is still unusual for even wealthy people to live to
be 100.
“We do know that the difference between the wealthiest and poorest
Americans is about 10 years for women and 15 for men, so there is a big spread
with wealthier people living much longer than poor people,” Himmelstein told
Healthline.
The underlying causes for the survival differences are complex and
reflect the interplay of health and economic status, as well as other factors
over people’s lifetimes, Rohwedder explains.
“It may be tempting to think ‘If only I was wealthy, my survival would
be so much higher too.’ But if I dump tons of wealth on you, would that insure
you live as long as other wealthy people? The answer is probably no,” said
Rohwedder.
For instance, differences in average survival have been found comparing
high versus low education, or high- versus low-income groups, leading to the
idea that good health helps people to do better at getting a good education and
perform better at their jobs.
That also leads to higher income and wealth.
In turn, with higher income and wealth, people can afford a healthier
lifestyle.
Rohwedder emphasizes that these patterns reflect correlations and should
not be interpreted in a causal manner.
Himmelstein agrees, noting that more education influences lifestyle
outcomes.
“Health literacy and nutrition literacy are partly determined by
education level and what your job is like and housing is like. If you have more
education, you are more likely to have access to the better pieces of housing
and jobs,” he said.
Healthy behaviors, such as exercising and eating a balanced diet, also
help increase the chances of living longer, and not smoking is the one
lifestyle choice that research proves increases your chances of living longer.
However, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports
that in the United States, people who live below the poverty level and people
with lower levels of education are more likely to smoke.
What About Access to Medical Care?
While having access to medical care or the money to pay for medical
treatments seems like it would increase longevity, research isn’t concrete.
Himmelstein says medical care is probably the second most important
determinant of how long a person will live next to everyday lifestyle circumstances,
such as housing conditions, diet, exercise, job, and stress.
Still, research shows that people who are underinsured (pay high co-pays
and deductibles) or who don’t have insurance feel discouraged from getting the
care they need. Those financial barriers in access to care have a small effect
on mortality.
“We have studies of uninsured people over the course of years [that
show] for every 800 people who are uninsured, one will die each year because
they are uninsured,” Himmelstein said. “We don’t know the exact causes of that
and if that adjusts for things like how wealthy they are, whether they smoke,
their race, education, and so on.”
He also points out results from surveying people who experienced heart
attacks but delayed going to the emergency room because of financial reasons.
“That delay can be fatal. We also know that if you give people who have
had a heart attack free medications for what’s needed after their heart attack,
they are less likely to have another heart attack or similar event in the
months following than those who have co-payments and deductibles for their
medications,” Himmelstein noted.
Research also shows that children with asthma whose families have high
co-payments for medications are more likely to end up hospitalized than kids
with asthma whose families don’t face high co-payments.
Overall, though, Himmelstein says controlling blood pressure and
advising people to stop smoking is probably the most important impact that
medical care has on determining life expectancy.
“It’s intervening to help people at the early stages of illness, or
before illness has developed, where we can predict the illness may develop, and
also treating conditions like high blood pressure,” said Himmelstein.
When it comes to high-cost tests such as colonoscopy, Rohwedder says
that it’s not always clear if access will extend life.
“The hope is that treatments help, but we don’t know if sometimes the
more treatment you get, the more things can go wrong,” she said. “When
questions like, ‘should everyone have the right to so-and-so test at age XYZ
arise,’ we have to think about not only the cost of these tests, but also the
issue of what kind of follow-up tests do these tests prompt, and will they
potentially cause aggressive treatment that does more harm than good.”
On a broader scale, data from the
Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development health database, which
collects comparable data from several wealthy nations, found that compared to
other wealthy nations, Americans have a shorter life expectancy until they turn
65 years old. Americans who make it to 65 tend to live longer lives.
“It’s quite clear that the U.S. is near the bottom for life expectancy
at birth, but does pretty well from 65 on,” said Himmelstein.
And if you make it past 65, whether you’re wealthy or not, living longer
means you have more years to finance.
“It’s not just an issue of the super-rich in the United States. Everyone
has to understand that the number of years they will have to finance will most
likely be larger than those of their parents,” Rohwedder said. “The hardest
part for everyone is planning for the uncertainty around these averages of
survival.”
Cathy
Cassata is a freelance health writer. This article was originally published on Healthline.com
Barack Obama created more debt for the middle class than any
president in US
history, and also had the only huge QE programs: $4.2
Trillion.
OXFAM reported that during Obama’s terms, 95% of the wealth created
went to
the top 1% of the
world’s wealthy.
PATHOLOGICAL LIAR BARACK
OBAMA MOCKS TRUMP
Obama orchestrated the
greatest transfer of wealth to the rich in U.S. history!
THE WALL STREET BOUGHT AND
OWNED DEMOCRAT PARTY
SERVING BANKSTERS,
BILLIONAIRES and INVADING ILLEGALS
THE
CRONY CLASS:
Income inequality grows
FOUR TIMES FASTER under Obama than Bush.
“By
the time of Bill Clinton’s election in 1992, the Democratic Party had
completely repudiated its association with the reforms of the New Deal and
Great Society periods. Clinton gutted welfare programs to provide an ample
supply of cheap labor for the rich (WHICH NOW MEANS OPEN BORDERS AND NO
E-VERIFY!), including a growing layer of black capitalists, and passed the 1994
Federal Crime Bill, with its notorious “three strikes” provision that has
helped create the largest prison population in the world.”
THE DEATH of
CALIFORNIA:
CALIFORNIA UNDER
MEX-OCCUPATION: POVERTY, GANG CRIME, STAGGERING LA RAZA WEFLARE STATE on
LEGALS’ BACKS
SHOCKING REPORT
OF POVERTY, CRIME AND LA RAZA SUPREMACY
http://mexicanoccupation.blogspot.com/2018/05/california-passes-uk-to-become-worlds.html
THE INVITED INVADING HORDES: IT’S
ALL ABOUT KEEPING WAGES DEPRESSED!
"In the decade following the
financial crisis of 2007-2008, the capitalist class has delivered powerful
blows to the social position of the working class. As a result, the working
class in the US, the world’s “richest country,” faces levels of economic
hardship not seen since the 1930s."
"Inequality has reached
unprecedented levels: the wealth of America’s three richest people now
equals the net worth of the poorest half of the US population."
STARING IN THE FACE of
AMERICA’S UNRAVELING and the ROAD TO REVOLUTION
“It will more likely come on the heels of
economic dislocation and dwindling wealth to redistribute.”
“Our
entire crony capitalist system, Democrat and Republican alike, has become
a kleptocracy approaching par with third-world hell-holes. This
is the way a great country is raided by its elite.” -- Karen McQuillan THEAMERICAN
THINKER.com
"The
kind of people needed for violent change these days are living in
off-the-grid rural compounds, or the “gangster paradise” where
the businesses of drugs, guns, and prostitution are much more
lucrative than “transforming” America along Cuban lines." BRUCE
THORNTON
*
There can be no resolution to any social problem confronting the
population in the United States and internationally outside of a frontal
assault on the wealth of the financial elite.
*
The political system is controlled by this
social layer, which uses a portion of its economic plunder to bribe politicians
and government officials, whether Democratic or Republican.
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