December 17, 2007

The rich get richer

In the US it seems that age old theory of the rich getting richer is still true, as new reports are published, these show that only one per cent of Americans in the years from 2003 to 2005 had an income that exceeded the total income of the lowest paid twenty per cent of the population.

As it turns out the people who made up a fifth of the population but had the lowest incomes earned $383.4 billion for the year 2005, while the top one per cent had an income of $524.8 for the same period, and astonishing difference.

On average the income for the top one per cent had risen by $465,700 or 42.6%, while at the other end of the scale the income did still rise but only by $200 just 1.3%.

Source [NY Times]