At the same time, new analysis this week revealed that the CEOs at the top ASX-listed companies earned 132 times the average Australian salary. Some made even more: the boss of CSL raked in $58.9 million.
How about that? 132 times! Of course, these disparities will always be with us: risk, reward — all that. But I wonder if I’m going to hear Mr Tens of Millions gripe in the near future about lack of growth, poor productivity and the need for better training, while women with three degrees take his kids through the alphabet?
While a complex web of factors have contributed to the rise in income inequality in America, a new research paper says most of the blame can be largely placed in the immense growth experienced by the top tenth of the richest 1 percent of Americans in recent years. From the report:
The rise of wealth inequality is almost entirely due to the rise of the top 0.1% wealth share, from 7% in 1979 to 22% in 2012, a level almost as high as in 1929. The bottom 90% wealth share first increased up to the mid-1980s and then steadily declined. The increase in wealth concentration is due to the surge of top incomes combined with an increase in saving rate inequality.
So, who are the 0.1 percent among us? According to Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, the paper’s researchers, the elite group is a small one, roughly composed of 160,000 families with assets exceeding $20 million, but their grip on America’s wealth distribution is about to surpass the bottom 90 percent for the first time in more than half a century. Today’s 0.1 percent also tend to be younger than the top incomers of the 1960’s, despite the fact the country as a whole has been living longer—proving once again, that there has truly never been a more opportune time to be rich in America:
olddogthoughts 
You must be logged in to post a comment.