Economics - What's That?

[S]ince 1979, the share of pretax income going to the top 1 percent of American households has risen by 7 percentage points, to 16 percent.

Over the same span, the share of income going to the bottom 80 percent has fallen by 7 percentage points.

It's as if every household in that bottom 80 percent is writing a check for $7,000 every year and sending it to the top 1 percent."

What's more, "In 2004, according to the Congressional Budget Office's latest official analysis, households in the lowest quintile of the country were making only 2 percent more (adjusted for inflation) than they were in 1979. Those in the next quintile managed only an 11 percent rise. And the middle group was up 15 percent.

Do you sense a pattern? The income of families in the fourth quintile -- upper-middle-class folks with an average yearly income of $82,000 -- rose by 23 percent. Only when you get to the top quintile were the gains truly big -- 63 percent."

In fact, among major world economies, the United States in recent years has had the third-greatest disparity in incomes between the very top and everyone else; only Mexico and Russia are worse.