By Dashiell Bennett, The Atlantic

In news that will surprise almost no one currently trying to occupy Wall Street, a new government report shows that the income of the top 1% is larger than ever and continuing to grow.

According to a new Congressional Budget Office report (See full CBO Report) released on Tuesday, since 1979 the average, after-tax income of the top one percent of American households has risen 275 percent. Meanwhile, for the poorest one-fifth of the country, it's gone up just 18 percent. And for the biggest slice of "middle class" America - the three-fifths of homes between the top and bottom 20% - incomes have risen just 40%.

All those numbers are inflation adjusted and only brings the data up to 2007, before the crisis that led to our current great recession.

The report also underlines how the good times of the last 30 years were good mostly for the wealthiest among us. The top 1 percent receives about 17 percent of all income in this country, a number that has doubled since 1979.
(see The Rise and Fall of the US Progressive Tax Structure)

homepage graphic