John Allen Paulos in his Who’s Counting column at ABC News:
Economists Thomas Piketty and Emmanuel Saez, who have long studied income distribution, have recently looked at the data and calculated that during this one-year period the real incomes of the richest 1 percent, those making at least $315,000 annually, grew by almost 17 percent. Furthermore, this growth in income not only eluded the lower- and middle-income classes, but by and large passed up the upper middle class as well.
The income increases of even those whose incomes were greater than 95 percent of other Americans were quite minimal. The huge increases in income went to those with already huge incomes. In fact, half of the increased income going to the top 1 percent of households went to the top tenth of the top 1 percent!
And the minimum wage? The lowest in real terms that it’s been since the 1950s. And the income of the typical college graduate? Down in 2004.
More here. [Photo of Paulos from National University of Singapore.]